


The Dark Horizon

by Valora



Series: Dark Chronicles [1]
Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: AU, Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Existential Crisis, Explicit Sexual Content, Extreme violence/torture, Horror, Implied Cannibalism, Mind Control, Multi, OC-centric, Other, Rape/Non-con Elements, Tragedy, Transformer Sparklings, Unconventional Relationship, Underage Sex, human-turned-Transformer, very dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-23 14:27:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 26,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6119263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valora/pseuds/Valora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know you can't run. And you know you can't hide. You are mine. You will be for the rest of eternity."</p><p>First of a series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If only

**First off, this is not a story for the faint of heart. This is a story about doubt, lies, violence and war. It contains very detailed gore, graphic language and sex. It might mess with your head, it might even make you cry. It will probably have you on the edge of your seat.**

**Some of the first chapters are still a bit rough around the edges, but I'm constantly reviewing and correcting them.**

**Anyway, should you decide to keep reading, you might find this story to be unlike anything you've encountered. In that sense, have fun reading ;)**

**Transformers belongs to Hasbro/ Takara.**

 

 

If only I had known what I was getting myself into. If only I hadn't been so naïve. If only I hadn't listened to him, to this deep baritone telling me to trust him. If only I hadn't gotten into the car.

Now I was sitting here on a cold metal table, alien fingers probing and examining a body that wasn't mine. A cage, I was living in one. A big, cold cage, with only one single exit: death. I closed my optics and sobbed. The fingers stopped.

"What's the matter, kid?" the voice of my friend, my only friend, inquired. I shook my head, looking down.

"It's nothing." That wasn't true. It was everything. I knew it. He knew it, but said nothing. He squeezed my shoulder lightly, resuming his work. I thought back. Back to a time when I had admired those warriors of metal, had looked up to them, had believed them. Those times, short and blissful as they had been, were gone. Forever.

It was on a December morning that it all started I think, it must have been winter- it was cold outside, cold and windy. Autumn leaves had long since collected in wet heaps in the outside corners of the school building, yet there was no snow. It was the second class of the day I think and I was sitting there, bored, letting my physics teacher blabber away while letting my mind wander, looking out of the window. The time just didn't seem to pass and every second I was spending in this facility just seemed so very pointless. Just two more years. Two more years and I'd be out of here. No more physics, no more math, no more anything I didn't like or need. Only me and my gift, what I wanted to do, what I was meant to do. And even if studying art meant I had to pass the hardest entrance examination in the world, I knew that if I couldn't do it, no one could. I desperately longed for a bigger world than the one my parents lived in, the only one they knew. I wanted adventure, no day would be like the next. I would be traveling to foreign countries, meeting new people every day, excitement waiting for me at every turn... I was certain that, should I lead a normal life, working in an office maybe, I would suffocate. I wanted unexpected things to happen.

And so, when I heard the sound of screeching tires, of roaring engines and missiles hitting the building, it was a mix of horror and curiosity that I felt. This was _most_ unexpected. My friend Malissa, who was sitting beside me grabbed my arm anxiously, she was scared, as anyone in their right mind would have been. My classmates started screaming, the girls' high pitched voices making my eardrums ache. Suddenly a huge pair of metallic feet crunched down in front of the classroom's windows and only seconds later the window side of the room was being torn off by the biggest pair of silver hands that I had ever seen. In a daze I realized that the other pupils had already stood up and were storming out of the room, retreating further into the building, I started to follow them hastily- but then _he_ called my name.

" _Joelle Dahl?"_ I turned around, shocked. This wasn't possible. I had heard about him. Seen him in comics, cartoons, movies. But this was real. I couldn't believe it. There he was, Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, kneeling in front of _my_ school, calling _my_ name. Not even in my wildest dreams had I imagined that this creature, this part of, well, mainstream entertainment would come into my life, but there he was right in front of me. About 30 feet tall, moving and talking. Talking to _me_ , at that. For a moment I wondered if this creature might have been man- made after all and if this was nothing but the most expensive trick in the world, but no. I was certain humans couldn't build something like this. This was no machine. It was alive.

"Y...yes?" He blinked the covers over his blue optics, eyeballing me with these glowing visual sensors. Malissa, who had already fled the room now returned, grabbing me by the arm once again, trying to pull me out of there. I wouldn't let her. My feet were firmly planted onto the linoleum on the floor, my body not moving a single inch, no matter how hard she tried.

"Come on, Joelle! We gotta get out of here!" She screamed at me. I didn't listen. All of my attention belonged to the giant red, blue and silver robot in front of me.

"Joelle Dahl, you are in great danger. There is no time to explain now. Please come with me." he said, that beautiful deep voice lulling me into some kind of trance. The next words were the ones that I should have never believed.

"Trust me." He extended his hand. I looked past his massive thigh, where other, somehow familiar robots were fighting, demolishing the whole parking lot and the surrounding buildings. I smelled smoke. The school was burning. Machine guns were rattling, glass was being shattered, cars were being crunched down to mere metal heaps, shredded beyond recognition. He promised safety. In a weird way. 'I'd probably be safer if I kept away from him', I thought, 'but that was what I wanted, wasn't it? An exiting, special life? And what would be a greater chance for such a life than him?' Besides... was it actually an option to refuse him? His hand was still outstretched to me. He was waiting for me. After taking a deep breath, I approached the hand, to the shock of my friend.

"JOELLE!"Malissa screamed. I climbed onto his flat palm, clinging to his thick fingers. I turned around one last time. While Optimus was standing up, I caught a last glimpse of my friend, who was trying to reach out for me, tears in her eyes and terror written all over her face, shouting for me to come back. Once he had reached his full height, I could see the complete extent of the battle for the first time. Four huge mechs, two of them winged, were trying to approach the large bot who was holding me in his hand safely, but a whole bunch of others (I counted at least nine of them) were keeping them at a safe distance. A sturdy black mech, big, but not as big as Optimus, ran towards us, panting.

"Got her?" he asked his leader, gazing into his hand curiously and scanning me.

"Yes. Hold them back a little longer, then retreat." The other robot nodded.

"Yes sir!"

xxxxxxxxxx

The soft leather seats were warm, somewhat snuggling into the curves of my body, holding me in place securely and comfortably while Optimus' motor was roaring, pushing his huge, transformed body forward at top speed untiringly. He had told me where we were going: their base. We had been driving for over an hour now, the other Transformers I had seen fighting at my school were following closely, a few others had even joined the convoy on the way. I looked to my left, where a holographic, tall man with a short brown beard was sitting in the drivers' seat, pretending to steer the vehicle. I cleared my throat. I wanted some answers and I wanted them now.

"So it's true. You guys are real."

"We are." He said, frowning at me. I then realized I had been tracing patterns on the inside of the passenger door absent- mindedly. I stopped immediately. Maybe I should try to keep my hands to myself, I thought, I was sitting inside some _one_ and not some _thing_ after all.

"Just like... in the movies and all? How come there are movies about you?"

"Sideways."

"Sideways?"

"An Autobot deserter. He had been hiding on earth for quite a while. At some point, he revealed himself to some humans, did business with them. He told them stories about our kind, about the war. They sold it as fiction and made a fortune."

"What happened to Sideways?" His expression tightened.

"What happens to all traitors when they finally get caught. He is dead."

"So... everything from the stories is reality? All the characters, your planet... all of that is true?" The hologram looked straight into my eyes, nodding. It unnerved me how he wasn't watching the road ahead anymore, but I had to remind myself that the hologram certainly didn't need to.

"Mostly, yes. Cybertron, the war, a lot of the Cybertronians involved, Autobots and Decepticons, good versus evil. There are some things that the humans don't know about us, and some things that they just dreamed up, but still." I shook my head. This was crazy.

"But what do I have to do with this? I mean, I'm just an ordinary human. I'm not a military person, I don't know about any top secret stuff... I can't be of any importance to you, can I?"

"Tell me, miss _Dahl_ , in the past years, did you ever break a bone? Did you ever fall sick? Did it ever occur that you were not 100% healthy?" I looked at my lap, thinking.

"Now that you mention it, no." The hologram nodded.

"And what do you think, why could that be?" I shrugged.

"Good immune system and a careful lifestyle?" He chuckled and shook his head, his brown strands moving almost naturally.

"No. Let me tell you another story. Three years ago a 13 year old girl was killed in a car accident. Only a few hours after that unfortunate incident, someone must have contacted your parents, making them an offer. The next day, the girl was back home, alive and happy. The only ones who ever remembered the accident were the parents and the stranger. This stranger, who had brought back the beloved daughter, was one of us. The girl she brought back that day was _her_ child. The child which she wanted to hide from the Decepticons. The child that would decide over our species' fate one day. Joelle, you're the child." Now I could see what he was getting at. It was just hard to believe. The fact that I was not my parents' daughter made me cringe. They'd never said a word about it. My stomach felt like it would wander up into my throat, cutting off my breath. My whole life, all my memories, were a lie?

"This can't be. I remember a time before I was 13 and I remember being human. You must have kidnapped the wrong girl." Again, he shook his head.

"It's all a matter of programming. Believe me, you're the one." I still wasn't sure if I wanted to believe this.

"So everything I remember... actually didn't happen?"

"It did happen, just not to you." He looked out of the windshield and up into the sky. I knew what he was most likely looking for.

"Okay. Let's say I'm this uhm... _child_ you're looking for. And you want me to help you. How?" He sighed.

"You see, the war has been raging for quite a while and truth be told, our race is going extinct. We haven't seen or heard about a functional femme in centuries. You're our last hope." I blushed. That was what he was after.

"You want me to help you save your species. In other words, you want me to have children."

"Yes." Yes. Just yes. Forgotten were the adventures, forgotten were glory and excitement.

"I'm sorry to say that, although your hologram is quite handsome, you're not my type." Said hologram tightened its grip on the steering wheel, shifting uncomfortably in its seat.

"You're not even fertile yet." I laughed sarcastically.

"Excuse me? I'm 16 years old, I got my period for the first time at the age of 14 and you're telling me I'm not fertile?" He rolled his bright blue eyes.

"What a detailed fake."

"FAKE?!"

"Yes, fake!" He let go of the steering wheel, left his seat and shoved his face into mine. He was so close I could see every one of the little blue accents that seemed to explode over his iris, emanating from the pupil, that seemed to narrow, seizing me up. He poked my arm, I slapped his hand away. "Listen. This skin, the hair, the muscle, the human organs, it's all a fake. A perfect disguise, no earthling would ever suspect you of being something else. This was exactly your mother's intention. And somehow she managed to stop your growth, otherwise you would be way too big by now to pass for a human. So you're still in your sparkling body, but your CPU has developed normally. And if you don't stop being so damn recalcitrant I'm feeling tempted to just tie you up and leave you in the back!" I felt his hot breath on my skin, felt his hands being braced on the seat on either side of my hips. Intimidated, I leaned back as far as possible, away from this relatively big artificial human male. He even _smelled_ real. It was a somewhat musky, but decent scent. I held up my hands in a defeated manner.

"I'll be a good girl. Just... get off me, please?" He retreated back to his seat.

"When we arrive I'll have Ratchet examine you. I think we'll have to remove all that... flesh to allow your body to reach its full size." The next minutes passed in silence. I was starting to get a very bad feeling about this. Still, I tried not to show it.

"You know, you're a pretty detailed fake yourself. Your hologram, I mean." He looked at me, smiling again.

"Thank you." I sat back, wrapping my arms around my body.

**xxxxxxxxxx**

As expected, the base was really big. Of course, since those guys were simply huge, they needed a shelter that equaled their size. I had to admit I didn't know where we were exactly for I had fallen asleep for a few hours, but it was located in the desert, a sealed military area. Area 51 maybe? Couldn't be sure. Nervously, I looked over to the hologram again. I wondered if, in case I had to stay here for a longer time, I would be allowed to visit my family and my friends. After all, even if I had left them in a rush without really thinking about it, I still cared about them.

"Uh...how long...do I have to stay here? I mean, before I can go home and visit my family?" He didn't respond while pulling up into a huge hangar. "Optimus...?"

The hologram disappeared, the door on my side of his cab opened. Slowly, I stepped out. When I had left the vehicle, Optimus transformed. I watched him, stunned. I had never seen anything this fascinating. This shifting of body parts, creation of new connections, the bombastic metallic sounds accompanying it. When he was finished I took in my surroundings. Thirteen Autobots, of which I could identify some, were standing around me, next to a bunch of human soldiers. They were all staring at me. The green mech to my left stepped forward and lifted me up by the back of my jacket, ignoring my shouts of protest. Ratchet, the chief medical officer. He eyed me up and down, obviously running scans as I struggled. He would most likely not intend to harm me, but still the position I was in was highly uncomfortable. Finally he lay me down on his palm and stroked my back with his other hand like I was some sort of pet one could just pick up to play with. I didn't want to be treated like an animal. I kicked his finger. He shook his head.

"A fascinating creation", he said, "probably one of the most advanced disguises I've come across. And you even managed to bring her here undamaged. I'm impressed."

Optimus nodded. "Retrieving her was rather uncomplicated. I'm leaving her in your care. She is to be examined and treated so she can be of use to us. I trust you to find a way to get her development restarted."

"I'm confident I'll figure it out, sir.", he responded.

"You may leave and start your work."

"Yes, sir."

Ratchet started making his way out of the hangar, securely holding me in place between his hands. The other mechs were still staring at me, not daring to say a word. It was strange, having all those familiar yet unknown aliens watch me so intently. After we had left, I could hear them talking quietly in the distance.


	2. Fear

The metal table I was sat on was cold, unlike the warm robotic hand that had been cradling me previously. The room was by far smaller than the hangar, far underground, but still huge for my standards with a few doors and big shelves stuffed with all kinds of metal parts, equipped with all kinds of alien tools and devices. Some small enough I was sure I could handle them, some so huge I would even have trouble _climbing_ on top of them. Some I could identify, things like wrenches, screwdrivers and welding equipment, but the majority looked completely foreign to me. Ratchet had pulled a chair up to the slab I was sitting on, something like a huge pair of scissors in his hand. I backed away from him nervously.

"What… keep those away from me?" I asked shakily.

He frowned, looking at me then at the scissors. "It's not my intention to damage you." Still, those sharp blades somewhat scared me. "Anyway", he continued, "I need to remove that cloth to get a proper look at you."

I looked down at myself. Was he planning on doing what I thought he was? "You want to strip me. I know you're the... doctor here, but... that's kind of awkward. I'd like to keep my clothes on."

He looked at me, confused. He probably didn't quite understand why I obviously did not want him to see me naked, considering that Autobots might have been strangers to the concept of wearing clothes. "You can talk all you like, but that won't change the fact that I have to examine you thoroughly, Miss Dahl. So please remove your clothing or I'll have to do that myself. It's your decision."

I cringed. 'fuck it', I thought, 'he's a doctor, he's probably not thinking anything inappropriate. He's just doing his job. Maybe he'll realize they got the wrong person and leave me alone.' Removing my jacked and starting to open the buttons of my blouse, I spoke. "It's cold in here. Could you please turn up the heater or something?" He reached under the table, most likely pushing some buttons hidden underneath, and it started to warm up immediately. When I was standing in front of him in my underwear, I stopped. He motioned for me to continue. "Go on. All of it." I wrapped my arms around myself. "Is this really necessary?"

"Yes." Right to the spot. Rude.

Hesitantly, I removed my white bra and panties, covering my private areas with my hands as soon as they were gone. Ratchet scanned me again, now without interference from my clothes. He then retrieved a tool from another table and switched it on. It hummed, the small blades at its head moving at a frantic pace.

"Hold still..." Before I could even realize what that thing was, he had already grabbed a strand of my long hair between two fingers and was happily cutting it off. I gasped, shocked, and scrambled away, causing him to accidentally pull out some of my hair. It hurt like hell but I didn't care at the moment.

"What the fuck! You ruined my hair!" I yelled at him, running to the corner of the table where I had put my clothes. Things were going downhill way too quick, I hastily slipped into my jeans, not caring about underwear, just wanting to get redressed and out of there. "That's it, I'm leaving. Stay away from me, you psycho!"

He just sat there, confused. "Hair is unhygienic. I need you to be clean."

In a hurry I put my blouse back on. "I must have been crazy. I should never have let you guys take me here. You're nuts. Stay away from me!" I said again as I closed my belt. Before I could put the rest of my clothes back on, he grabbed me, bringing me up to eye-level although I was struggling.

"You cannot just leave. Resistance is futile. I have my orders."

"Well, fuck those orders! Put me down!" I yelled. He shook his head.

"The Prime's word is law. No exceptions." I growled.

"Put. Me. Down."

"No."

"AAARGH!" I started pounding his metal fingers with my fists until my knuckles bled. He seemed unimpressed. Tears of anger and fear started to flow down my cheeks.

"Put me down! Weren't you taught to respect others? You're an Autobot, dammit!" He seemed to cringe at the mention of his faction.

"Stop it." He murmured. "You're hurting yourself." Again, I brought my fist down hard on his thumb.

"This is _my_ body! I can do whatever I want with it!" He made a strange noise, blowing air out between his 'teeth'.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble we went through just to find out where you were? Do you know how many years we had to search for every tiny bit of information just to find you? We need you. You're one of us. Stop fussing." I sagged a little in his grasp, growing exhausted from all the struggling.

"As if it's my fault. You want me to feel guilty, but that's not gonna work, you hear me?" He rubbed his forehead with his free hand, sighing.

"You know what? I don't care if you're feeling guilty or not. I just want you to cooperate so I can do my job. I'd sedate you if I could, but as of yet I cannot tell how your systems will react to it. So I can't."

I opened my mouth to talk back at him but he interrupted me before I could say anything. "And in case you're considering crying for help, I can tell you right away it will get you nowhere. Is that understood?"

Finally, I raised my hands in a somewhat defeated manner, seeing that this was pointless.

"And what", I inquired with an unsteady voice, "are you gonna do in case I _don't_ cooperate?"

His optics darkened. "I'll have to restrain you and go through with the examination anyway. But that would hurt you and that's not something I'm looking forward to. If I put you down now, will you be a good girl?"

"Yes. I'll be good." I ground out between clenched teeth. He kept his word and sat me down on the table again. And once again, I was forced to undress.

I had to admit I was scared to death when I was instructed to sit down and keep still, but I tried not to show it. My previous crying had already been more than enough humiliation for today. I hugged my legs to my chest. Yes, my dignity had actually always been important for me. Just like my hair. My long, silky hair I had always been proud of. Not in my wildest dreams had I imagined cutting it. And now Ratchet's tool was happily humming over my head, removing every shiny, glorious strand of pride I had.

I had a real bad feeling about all of this. I kept quiet, the only sign of my distress being the salty water pouring down from my eyes and over my emotionless face. He removed every hair on my body that was longer than three millimeters, then sprayed me with some heady stinking liquid that made me cough, probably disinfectant. Then he started the examination.

He mainly felt my body with his huge digits, bent all of my joints, moved my spine carefully, scanned me over and over and over again. To his credit I had to admit he was as gentle as a two story tall robot could be.

When he was finished, the big metal doors opposite from the shelf opened and the imposing commander, Optimus Prime, stepped in (I was sure Ratchet had called him via some internal communicator), causing me to blush and immediately try and cover my nakedness. He didn't greet me, not even really paying me any attention.

They started talking in their native tongue. Of course I didn't understand a single word. After all, their language was so different from all languages of earth. Clicks, rattling, purring, clanging and cooing noises, mechanical sounds spoken in a pace my ears couldn't quite take in.

Suddenly the room darkened and beams of light emanated from Ratchet's optics, forming a three dimensional hologram showing my insides as they chattered on. Ratchet, although he was most likely pointing something out with the help of the hologram, seemed to be very submissive in the conversation, reluctant and rather quiet. The hologram was a fascinating sight, yet it was highly disturbing. It was the final blow to my identity, every belief that they had made a mistake completely destroyed. Anybody could have told this was not a human body. It seemed to depict some kind of x-ray image so the skeleton was clearly visible.

Never before had I seen such an image of my myself (since it had never been necessary to make one), but while its outer, nearly transparent "shell" resembled my body as I knew it, I could clearly see that the hologram did not only have an absolutely non-human skull, but the breastbone was covering the whole chest and the limbs' "bones" were way too numerous and thick. The hipbone had a totally abnormal form and above it, where a human skeleton consisted only of a spine, there was a slim, but completely shaped waist and stomach. This creature was no human- but it did bear a strong resemblance to the Cybertronians. So I was a machine in a human body. That was too much. I hit the table I had been standing on hard as I fainted.

xxxxxxxxxx

I felt around me, not daring to open my eyes yet. Maybe it had just been a dream. I know, everyone would have hoped that in my situation, but for a split second I really had some hope to wake up in my bed at home and realize it had all just been a nightmare spawned by my internet- and TV-spoiled mind. For a split second I believed, that if I opened my eyes now, I would see the orange ceiling of my room and the messy heaps of clothes on the floor.

But reality hit me hard when I did open my eyes. I was _not_ in my room, _not_ in my parents' house in the little town I grew up in, _not_ anywhere I wanted to be. I was still in that room. That room where the Autobots' chief medical officer had revealed my whole existence to be a lie.

At least I wasn't on that metal table anymore. Actually, I was in a box. A square glass box, just big enough for me to lay down somewhat comfortably. Its bottom was covered with soft white cloth and large pillows while a big infrared-lamp was shining on me from the top. I stared at it. What did they think I was? A piglet?

Sitting up, I noticed I had been clad in something one could have called a bathrobe. It was also white. On full alert now, I looked around. Ratchet wasn't there, nor was any other Autobot or human. I got up, just to cringe back down in an instant. I pulled the bathrobe from my stomach to expose a huge black effusion with a dried, bloody stain in the middle of it, right above my right hip. It hurt terribly. The flesh around it didn't look good. It was greenish black and the skin covering it seemed to be starting to rot. I clutched the fabric to my body, trying to make the pain go away. It subsided just enough to allow me to stand and see if there was some way to open the box. No such luck. I could see how it had been closed, yes, but I couldn't reach the lever from the inside. I hit the glass with my flat palm, but that didn't earn me anything but a dull sound and an aching hand.

"You're awake." I spun around, seeing Ratchet carrying a small lattice box filled with various metal devices into the room. "You got me worried. Something seems to be wrong with your stabilizing systems." He took a seat in front of me and leaned forward. "How do you feel?"

I glared up at him, my moss green eyes darkening to mere black spots. "How do you _think_ I feel?" I hissed, pressing my hand onto the black spot over my hip to lessen the reawakening pain. The fabric over the wound was already getting soaked.

"Oh that. Yes, I thought the injection would harm the organic matter. But at least it rose your protoform's energy level. That should restart your growth in about a week.

My stomach grumbled loudly, demanding to be filled, my mouth was terribly dry. "Speaking of energy levels. I'm thirsty. And I'm dying of hunger. You see, I haven't had anything since before you guys kidnapped me, so..."

He shook his head. "Oh no, no, no. No human food for you, missy. We don't want that... grime in you for your surgery."

I raised my hand to my head to brush through my hair, just to be reminded that it was gone. Tears stung my eyes, but I bit them back. "You do realize humans die if they have nothing to eat and drink, right? And- wait, what was that about surgery?"

He had pulled his chair over to his workbench, sorting out the metal pieces from the box he had brought in earlier, neatly stacking them in front of himself. "Come on, use that little processor of yours. How do you think I'm supposed to get all that organic tissue off of you?"

I fell silent, sitting down between the pillows. I remembered Prime mentioning something about "removing flesh" when we came here, but I had thought it had been a joke. Forget about the whole robot-inside-me-story, this was my body he was talking about and obviously he was planning on ripping the flesh off my bones. He was going to kill me, I was sure of that. And he was talking about it like it was the most natural thing in the world. I had to get away from there, and fast. But how? If I could somehow reach the surface, I would still be in the middle of a desert, miles from the next settlement, this place was crawling with Autobots and military personnel. A plan started to form in my head. But I'd have to wait until evening.

Clearing my dry throat I knocked against the glass wall in front of me. "Uh, Ratchet?"

"Hm?" He didn't even look up from his work.

"What time is it?"

Again, without looking up, he answered. "It's 4:52 pm, on December the 18th. Why?"

"Curiosity." He shrugged, lifting two weirdly shaped small metal parts and getting a close look at them.

4:52 pm. So I had been here for a whole day already. Had I been out cold for so long? I estimated it would take until about 6:00 pm until it was completely dark outside. That were 68 minutes, or in other terms 4080 seconds. I started counting.

Ratchet was sitting there the whole time, completely focused on his work. Now and then he would reach into his toolbox and make a little noise altering some part's form, but most of the time the only sounds that could be heard were the soft clicking of him putting the parts together. I wondered what exactly he was doing, but I didn't dare to ask so I wouldn't lose my count.

3795 seconds. I was getting nervous.

3950 seconds. What if my plan didn't work out and I didn't even get out of the box?

4080 seconds. "I need to go to the bathroom." I squeaked, pressing my legs together uncomfortably.

"Forget it.", Ratchet all but grumbled.

"If you won't let me go, I'm gonna wet myself. I thought you wanted me to be clean." I said, turning his own words against him. He turned around to look at me with a somewhat disgusted expression on his face, then sighed.

"I will call someone to escort you." I stood up, stepping from one foot to the other. "Please hurry."

Of course I did _not_ need to go to the bathroom, but it was the only way to get out of the room I could think of right now. Only about four minutes later the door opened and a rather short yellow robot stepped in. 'That might be Bumblebee', I thought, watching as Ratchet stood up to take off my prison's cover and reaching inside to pick me up. I tried my best to remain calm when he handed me over to his fellow Autobot and told him something in Cybertronian. Bumblebee clutched me to his chest so I couldn't get away and carried me out. While he was carrying me, I tried to take in and remember my surroundings the best I could since I thought it might come in handy in case my plan didn't work. The hallways all looked the same to me, so it was extremely hard to find any characteristic attributes about them to help me remember.

After turning right once and left twice we entered an elevator, which brought us three floors higher. We left into the hallways again, turned right once. In this hallway I noticed something promising. An installation duct- opened for repairs. It would certainly be a tight fit but I was sure I'd be able to manage. About 35 meters onward Bumblebee stopped, leaning down to open a human-sized door. He then put me on the floor.

"There. Hurry up!" I did as I was told and closed the door behind me. Frantically, I started looking around, finally letting my panic surface, now that I was alone. There were a few ventilation shafts over the eleven toilet booths, but they were way too small to fit through. Besides, they were bolted shut. So what I had seen before really was the only way so far. After sending a quick prayer to the heavens I pressed the flush and used the tab to wash my hands to make my stay in the bathroom sound authentic. I looked up into the mirror and halted. A stranger looked back at me. Pale skin, dark rings beneath the eyes and a bare skull. I looked terrible. I opened the bathrobe to inspect my injury. It had become bigger, the black coloring of the skin had spread. It was now too big for my whole hand to cover. I winced. One day and I barely recognized myself.

A sharp knock on the door ripped me out of my thoughts. "Are you finished yet?" Bumblebee inquired, his voice much rougher and harsher than those of his many bubbly, friendly incarnations in the media.

"I...yes." I took a few deep breaths to prepare myself for the task ahead. I had to be quick. My heart was pounding 180 times a minute minimum when I opened the door.

The yellow Autobot was standing in front of me, arms crossed, tapping his foot impatiently. When he approached me, time began to blur. All I could hear was my heart beating in my chest and my blood rushing in my ears as he bowed down to grab me. My feet seemed to be glued to the floor, I wanted to run so desperately. Eventually I could rip them loose and run for it. It didn't take the Autobot long to come running after me, but still my surprising move had earned me a little head start. The 35 meters to the installation duct seemed to pass excruciatingly slow as I ran as fast as my legs would allow me.

I didn't even notice my dress flying open or the blood seeping from my side. I didn't notice the robot behind me closing in with long strides. My whole attention belonged to the hole in the wall. I jumped- and reached the shaft right before the metal fingers could grasp me, hitting my shoulder in the process but managing to scramble down the vertical shaft quickly. Alarms sounded. Behind me, I could hear Bumblebee cursing both in English and Cybertronian.

xxxxxxxxxx

I knew I had to go upward. Ahead of me, further into the ground, was a dead end. But I couldn't turn around in the tight tunnel I sometimes had trouble even squeezing through, and I couldn't climb upwards upside down. So, holding my weight by my arms only, I climbed and slithered down. The blood should have been going to my head by now, but it wasn't. After just a few minutes I reached a vertical grid cover big enough for me to fit through. I arched my back against it to get it opened. After a few energetic hits it gave in and I tumbled out. Quickly I got up, panting and with burning muscles. I was in a small and grubby room, pipes and fuse boxes everywhere. In one corner there was a small wardrobe. I opened it and found a blue overall. I lifted it for inspection, seeing that a bathrobe probably wasn't the best dress to wear for an escape. It was way too big for me, it smelled repulsive and it was dirty, but if I rolled the sleeves and pants up, it would do. I changed quickly, noticing how the effusion on my side had become bigger and more painful again. The alarms were still sounding. I was certain both human and Autobot forces where already looking for me. I made my stomach knot uncomfortably.

With extreme caution I opened the door, relieved at finding the hallway empty. I jogged along, a crower I had also found in the previous room in my hand. If I'd go down, I'd go down fighting, I thought. I was outnumbered, outgunned and outskilled hopelessly, still my instinct to survive urged me on. I heard voices down the corridor. They were closing in on me. There was nowhere to hide, so I ran into the other direction. When I turned a corner, I was confronted by a small group of human soldiers, armed with rifles. Everything went so fast after that. I heard them shouting at me, but I didn't listen, didn't even realize _what_ they were trying to tell me. Turning another corner, I took off running again, but this time I was being followed. Believe it or not, in my mortal fear I was able to run a bit faster than the uniformed men, but not faster than their bullets.

I saw blood spraying in front of me. The air was pressed out of my lungs. _After_ that, I heard the shots. I fell, clashing face first into the floor, my speed making a hard crash out of it, everything was getting black for a moment. Then I screamed. Pools of blood were forming on my left shoulder and thigh, running down my body as I writhed on the floor in agony. Next I knew the humans were carrying me somewhere, but I had long lost orientation in the monotonous tunnels. The world around me was blurry. An eerily familiar shape entered my vision. Ratchet. I lost consciousness.

xxxxxxxxxx

I opened my eyes slowly. I still couldn't see properly, couldn't move. My whole body was aching, cold sweat pouring down my body. Like from afar, I could hear those clicking noises again, but faster than before, hasty. I was staring up into a terribly bright light when a shadow fell over me. A huge shadow, edgy, humanoid with antennae emanating from the head. Optimus. I could only see his silhouette as he spoke. His voice sounded muffled to me, but I could understand what he was saying.

"Finally. You're awake." He sounded angry. Very, very angry. "I swear to Primus, should you ever pull another stunt like that, I -"

"It's no use, Prime." another voice interrupted. It was Ratchet. "The dirty rags she was wearing contaminated the entry wounds and caused an inflammation. She has a bad fever. I don't believe she is fully aware at the moment." I wondered why he was speaking English and not Cybertronian, but either way I was glad no one was yelling into my aching ears anymore.

Optimus growled, obviously still staring at me. "Fine. Anyway, I want the surgery done ASAP. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir. The preparations shall only take a few cycles longer."

"Very good. Let me know when you're finished." The shadow disappeared, leaving me staring into the light again. So at this very moment Ratchet was preparing the surgery, in other terms, my early death. Burst were the dreams of an eventful life. This was it. I had been predestined to die as a mere child, at the age of sixteen. I was helpless. I would never see any of my friends or family again, would never again feel the wind caressing my face, would never see the sparkling stars of the night sky again, would never be able to achieve anything in my life. My life was over. A single tear rolled down the side of my motionless face.

 


	3. Pain

I wanted to die then and there. Out of exhaustion. Peacefully. To just fall asleep and never wake up. Indeed, I was tired. But I was also scared. More than ever. Being awake, aware of what was happening around me, but not being able to move was absolute horror. I couldn't live. I couldn't _die_. Had I been able to move, I would have probably killed myself. With a ballpen if necessary. Anything to avoid what was to happen to me now. But I was too weak to even lift a finger.

I nearly got a heart attack when I was picked up by the huge alien robot who would be my executor.

He seemed to notice my shock, though not visible to the outside, but very well recognizable with his scanners and sensitive hands. He lay me down on his surgery table. I couldn't tell whether it was warm or cold, it just felt painful to be moved as he took off the bandages which had been wrapped tightly around my body earlier to keep me from bleeding to death.

"Sshhh. Don't worry; you won't feel a thing." His words, which were meant to calm me down, had the opposite effect on me. I was placed on my stomach before he pinned me down with one of his huge fingers on my back. Whether my breath was quickening or I stopped breathing completely I didn't know. My senses were betraying me. I didn't hear well, didn't see well.

But I _did_ feel. I _felt_ it when he pressed something to the back of my neck, when he sliced through my skin and my nerves with it. I _felt_ the warm blood gushing out. I wanted to scream so desperately, to scream until my voice gave out, to beg for mercy, anything. I got dizzy, and sick. I would have thrown up, but there wasn't anything left in my stomach to puke out. My spit started to foam, clinging to my lips.

Assuming I was paraplegic from the neck down, Ratchet forgot all gentleness and started to slice my back open with deadly precision. He was wrong. Obviously even super-advanced robots from outer space made mistakes. I felt everything, I just couldn't move. I couldn't even cry anymore because I was so dehydrated. The world around me was spinning. My body moved passively as a reaction to the dance of Ratchet's scalpel. The blood was already forming a huge puddle under me and I was lying in it, face down. I hated the stench of blood, I hated it profoundly. The red, sticky fluid got into my nose, mouth and eyes. It was like acid, burning me mercilessly.

He opened my skin along the spine, from top to bottom, then moved his blade across my sides; the vibrations it caused when it made contact with my bones were screeching through my whole physique, torturing me into a state of mind where I didn't know what was worse: feeling my body being truncated or just _knowing_ what was being done to me. He grabbed the open edges of my skin and started to pull it from my ribs. It made a ripping noise, like fabric being torn apart. Only more muffled.

Why did god, or whoever was up there in heaven, let this monster from another world make me suffer so much? Why did no one stop him when he let his scalpel cut through the flesh on the back of my arm and pull it off like a long glove? Why didn't he let me _die_? How could I just still be _alive_?

Ratchet turned me around to work at my front. I could see his face hovering above me as he sliced, pulled and hollowed out my innards. I saw no mercy in his optics, no sympathy, only plain and sterile concentration. To me, it was the face of a cold killer. A machine. I should have been dead by now, I really should have been. I would have been glad if I had been just unconscious, but I wasn't. Why had I fainted repeatedly before, but now I couldn't? I was still there, on this goddamn surgery table, in that room created by Satan himself, where I had entered as a relatively happy girl and where I was now being taken apart, muscle fiber by muscle fiber. What I would have given for salvation. I could hear a distinct smack when he threw a big piece of my skin, which he had removed, to the side. Then he took another, smaller tool and neared my face. Slowly, he scraped out my eyes, let the liquid captured inside escape, ripped out my tongue, cut out my vocal chords. I could still see though. But still, _I couldn't die_. I could still hear after he had cut off my ears. I could still _feel_ after he had skinned me. I smelled my blood mixing with other body fluids, pouring out of my frazzled organs. It hurt. It hurt so much.

I thought he would probably crack my skull now, like a nut. I imagined the sound it would make; the dry snap and the squish after that. I imagined my battered, bloody brain falling on the table, imagined how I would still feel what no one, be they human or not, should have to endure. He didn't crack it, though. Instead, he started scraping another tool over my skeleton, removing every last bit of what I had been once. Who I had been. And although he had removed everything that had marked me as a living being, I was still _there_.

When he seemed content with his work, he took me off the surgery table. I sensed the way I perceived the things around me had changed. The touch of his hand was way more intense, more dolorous, but warmer, way more... existent. He carried me somewhere, but in my pain and fear I didn't pay attention, bloody witnesses of my torture dripping to the ground. Shock hit me when ice-cold fluid enveloped my body. Again, I wanted to scream and struggle, but still I couldn't. I hadn't bled to death in Ratchet's workshop, so I should be drowned now? I couldn't breathe. On reflection, I didn't remember breathing for a while. I noticed I didn't _need_ to breathe. The Autobot lifted me out of the cold tub just to put me into another one. He kept me in there longer. I was freezing, but my body didn't shudder, devoid of all reflexes.

I thought another excruciatingly cold bath was to come when he lifted me back out, but this time, to my surprise, the amber liquid I was plunged into was warm and viscous. His hands let go of me. The room got dark, Ratchet left. Slowly, very slowly I sank down into the tank, stunned to experience something not painful.

The liquid wrapped around me, caressing my sore torso like a loving mother's kiss, bringing welcomed numbness with it and spreading the warmth in my limbs. My heart slowed. I couldn't think clearly, I only knew that, miraculously, I had survived. Weak, scared and unable to move or communicate, but I had. My fingers twitched. And finally, oblivion came over me, like a huge black cloud, dazing me and lulling me into a dreamless, fitful sleep.

 


	4. Born Anew

Blurred images entered my mind. Robotic faces hovering above me, mechanical voices sounding. I didn't know whether I was dreaming or really seeing them, whether I was asleep or awake. However, I was warm, I wasn't in pain and I was getting some rest and that was all I cared about at the moment. I only wanted to sleep. But the voices grew louder and louder around me, starting to sting my ears. Not making a sound, I grabbed on to my head and turned to my side, trying to doze off again. They wouldn't let me. Something warm touched my shoulder, squeezing it gently. I opened my eyes, still half asleep. Armor parts of metal, tires and joints of all sizes and colors were gathered in front of me. That was when I woke with a start, sat up quickly and scuttled away from my dangerous visitors immediately, almost falling off the table I had obviously been sleeping on.

"I take it the surgery has been a success." I heard the enormous red, blue and silver Autobot to my right say. I just sat there and stared, shivering with fear.

"Yes, sir. It was relatively uncomplicated. The shell has been removed completely."

Surgery? Shell? I put one and one together and assumed they were talking about me and the humanity I had lost- I didn't even know when it had happened, or how long I had been out. Before I could do anything the CMO grabbed me by the back of my neck and lifted me about ten feet above the table just before dropping me, my body reacting on its own, turning mid-air and landing on its hands and feet.

"Her reflexes are just perfect. She'll also start consuming the raw materials necessary for her growth soon and..." he looked at the floor gloomily "...and soon she'll be full grown. Physically, that is." Ratchet started to forage between some of his tools at the side of the table. Optimus frowned.

"But she's so...thin." Sideswipe grumbled, looking disappointed.

"Don't worry. She's got the right genes to become a lean, but strong and healthy femme. She'll probably still won't be remarkably big, although that shouldn't pose a problem in any way."

"Very well, then. You're to take care of her until then, keep her in top condition and Ratchet," Optimus said threateningly, leaning closer to the medic (and therefore over me, casting his huge shadow on my body, making me crawl away from him a little) "I'm making _you_ responsible should _anything_ happen to her, so watch her _good_. Do I make myself perfectly clear?" "...yes, sir..." Ratchet said, his voice barely above a whisper. "What was that?" Optimus snapped, his body tensing visibly. "Yes, sir!"

After a few seconds of Optimus staring down the medical officer, he left, followed by his subordinates, all except one. While they were pooling out of the room, I dared peel my eyes off them and look down at myself. I didn't like what I was seeing. It was not my body, not what I'd been used to and certainly not what I wanted to be. A thin, fragile looking... thing with a flat chest, consisting of slightly curved, interlocking silver and copper colored metal plates, hydraulics and black cables was where my body used to be, its thin limbs beginning to shiver in the cool air. I slowly lifted my, now too, metal hands in front of my face to inspect them. My wrists were framed with bracelet -like plates and the fingers ended in sharp talons. This was the end, I realized, the end of my previous life. Now, there truly was no going back. Nothing would ever be the same.

I started sobbing quietly, hugging my metal limbs to my body. My forehead thumped into my knees with a clang and my eyes- no, _optics_ \- started to itch from being clamped shut so tightly.

How I cursed the day the Autobots had found me. Had I only stayed hidden, as my mother had obviously intended… she had not wanted this for me, had made a tremendous effort to conceal my true nature just to protect me. It was then that something came to mind, something I was sure every orphan had, at some point, dreamed of. I wanted someone to be here, to embrace me and tell me everything would be alright and I wondered if my real mother was still out there somewhere. If she would come to take me with her one day. And my father? Was he with her? I could be sure it was none of the mechs I had encountered, considering how they had treated me. I had fallen silent in the meantime. Yes, I imagined my parents, my real parents coming back for me and getting me out of here. A doubtlessly stupid and unlikely, childish fantasy, but still it gave me an imaginary place to retreat to for the time being.

I looked over at Ratchet, who was busying himself with some kind of electronic book. Autobots. Fighting for freedom and equality my ass. Those heaps of scrap metal had turned out to be just as ruthless as... it made me wonder what the Decepticons were like. If I was lucky, they'd turn out to be better than what I had heard about them, but if I was not...

"You're so quiet." Ratchet stated, filling a small canister with a pink fluid. I looked up at him and shot him a glare before returning to my cowering position. I almost jumped when one of the blankets I had previously been sleeping on was wrapped around my shoulders carefully. Feeling too tired to try and run again, I wrapped the thick fabric around my body tighter, relishing the warmth it spread over my metal skin.

"You know, you might try and get used to your vocal processor. Synthesizing sounds with it is different from using human vocal chords." Actually I had planned to tell him to shut the fuck up or equally friendly things whenever I had the opportunity to do so, but although I wasn't too keen on following his advice I tried to yell at him, just to experience that said vocal processor didn't quite want to cooperate, releasing a static hiss when I tried to speak. It was a terrible sound, and being in a situation where I couldn't express myself _again_ made me more than upset. I kept hissing like that for a while and every time I tried to produce an acceptable sound and failed, I got angrier. I was infuriated to say the least when that damn medic started laughing about me like I was some infant doing something incredibly adoring and funny. Saluting him with my middle finger I watched with dread as he attached something that looked like a pacifier to the little container. It was a baby bottle. I was _not_ a baby!

The Prime's words returned to my mind. Ratchet was supposed to take care of me, to _protect_ me. His leader would certainly rip him a new one if anything happened to me, including Ratchet himself harming me. That little fact formed a plan in my head. A stupid plan that probably wouldn't get me anywhere but it would probably be some kind of entertainment for the period of my imprisonment (which I feared would be quite a while).

Hissing and spitting didn't do any good as he came over to me and grabbed me by the back of my neck again, leaving me dangling from his fingers for a moment like a kitten would from its mother's jaw before cradling me in his palm. I didn't know how he did it but suddenly he managed to put the suckle into my mouth and start to feed me, but I wouldn't let him do his job that easily. I squirmed, kicked his hand with my feet, bucked against the bottle, hissing all the time. He wanted a baby? He'd get a nightmare! Changing my strategy; I sucked some of the bottle' fluid into my mouth and squirmed long enough to get that humiliating piece of rubber out. My mouth full of energon I glared up at Ratchet, who looked kind of content...yet. It didn't taste bad; strange, but not bad, nevertheless I'd teach that damn robot a lesson.

"Come on, swallow it. You need more energy, kid." My mouth curled into an evil smile over my now hamster-like cheeks before releasing all of the energon onto his face, chest and arms. I'd understate if I said he looked stunned. He looked hilarious. Lime green and silver armor with pink spots all over his torso, what a combination of colors! Of course I was aware of my own body also being full of the liquid, but at the moment there was nothing I could have cared less about. And to my relief my vocal processor finally started releasing understandable sounds. Static grew into shrieking and shrieking into a metallic cackle. I laughed so hard I started to cough, then continued laughing at the medic's perplexed expression. Ratchet was just standing there, frozen, energon dripping off his frame.

"You've got a strange sense of humor, sparkling." said the mech while lowering me to the table and starting to clean himself roughly with a rag. I managed to squeak out a decent 'fuck you' with a still very strange sounding voice between my laughs and rolled around on my back. His confusion had turned into an oh-shit-how-am-I-supposed-to-put-up-with-that-expression when he tried to clean me and I successfully kicked his hands away. I wondered how many stunts I could pull before he snapped? I decided that, if I had to stay here I'd make it worth the while and find out. I hand suffered through his hands, now he would suffer through mine. Through my hands, feet, mouth and anything within my reach that I could throw or spit at him. I wanted revenge and as long as this mech had to take care of me, I would make his life a living hell.

He picked me back up and tried to insert the feeding appliance into my mouth again, but I managed to dig my razor sharp teeth into its side and cause it to gush energon all over my shoulder. I growled and tightened my bite on the suckle, throwing my head from side to side like a predator trying to rip a piece of flesh out of its prey, breaking the soft material. Sighing, Ratchet managed to pull the bottle away, shaking his head as he took in the damage I had done to it. It also was half empty by now, but its contents were obviously not where Ratchet had intended for them to end up.

Additionally I decided I'd empty my now full mouth on him again, adding a new layer of color to my artwork before falling into another fit of evil giggling. Again, he sighed.

"Kid, you're making this harder for both of us. Look, I have to see to your health and you need to-"

"I don't need to do anything!" I screamed, throwing my now energon-soaked blanket at him for emphasis. Ratchet was looking kind of desperate by now.

"No matter what you do, you can't make me obey! I'll be no one's slave, you hear me?! If I choose to starve before taking anything from you, THEN I WILL! And don't you dare thinking I'd pass any opportunity to cause YOU problems! Watch your back, medic! WATCH YOUR BACK!" I kept screaming the last sentence over and over again while he picked me up and put me into the glass box where I started punching and kicking the walls of my prison.

After shaking his head one last time he left. I kept screaming and thrashing, but as soon as the med bay doors closed behind him I collapsed into the pillows, staining them with the pink fluid. I supposed he knew I was indeed very hungry and weakened, but I'd put on this act until either he gave up or I dropped dead. I thanked god for my acting experience. It may sound strange, but I tended to stage my whole day, even when I was by myself. To me, it was a form of art to almost never do anything imprudently, always analyzing the current situation, thinking of possible scenes, choosing the best one and acting it out, all in a split second. I wondered if my grades in school would have been better (okay, they'd never been _that_ bad, but still) if I had used more of my brain capacity for my lessons rather than for creating scenes, worrying about a thousand things and doodling everywhere I shouldn't be at the same time.

My fingers twitched as I lay in the box, staring up at the infrared lamp. What I would have given for a sheet of paper and a couple of pens! How I longed to draw something, anything, no matter what... but it was unlikely that I'd get my hands on anything of that kind in the foreseeable future (not counting my food being spit onto the medic's armor).

Slowly, actually wanting to go back to sleep but deciding against it, I sat up and looked at the small cracks in the glass I had obviously caused earlier, tracing one of them with my clawed index finger, creating a screeching sound of metal on glass. If my hands were made of metal, then maybe...My right hand curled into a fist and I pulled it back to gain momentum, but hesitated. Robot or not, this would hurt. I clamped my optics shut and collided my fist with the glass, using every bit of strength I had left- and felt my fingers shatter, the joints pop, the cables snap. I cried out, clutching my hand to myself in an instant. Whimpering, I sunk back down into the pillows and closed my optics. I would probably never be able to escape, would I? My sob resounded in the glass box. Maybe I would never see my friends again, or my family. Another sob. Maybe I would never be free again. But I sure would try, again and again.

By now I was shaking as one sob rattled my body after the other, but no tears were leaving my optics. I couldn't even cry properly. It sucked not to be able to shed tears. What would happen to me now? To them, I was an infant. But what when I was grown up? I remembered what Prime and Ratchet had talked about. Reproduction. I was a female Transformer among what? 20 or 30 males? Maybe more? The thought made me feel sick. Hadn't Prime told me they were going extinct? That was why they had brought me here. Male Autobots. Fucking _huge_ Autobots. I shuddered. While I knew nothing about their matters of reproduction, I was pretty sure it would hurt. What if it resembled the way humans did it? If the Autobots intimate parts were just remotely proportional to their bodies... they would tear me apart, without doubt. Clenching my thighs together closely, I whimpered. If I didn't want them to do those things to me, they would probably use force. Which wouldn't be too hard for them considering their size and strength. I was now wailing loudly. I didn't want to be here and I didn't want to be used by them. I needed to get out.

But even if I did make it, where was I supposed to go? Off planet? Impossible. I knew next to nothing about space travel and even if I had a ship I wouldn't even know how to get the engine started. Go back to my family? Nope. Even if they believed that the alien robot standing in front of them was their daughter, what were they supposed to do? Hide me? The Autobots would have me back before I could say "Surrealism". Running from them would be difficult...very, very difficult...

My hand still hurt. After a while my brain, or processor, or whatever was there in my head, got tired over thinking about a solution to my problem. I was running out of ideas and I was running out of energy to think about them, for now... finally I lost the ability to think straight and my optic covers got heavy...

XXXXXXXXXX

I awoke to the sound of doors being opened with a bang and bots storming in. Ratchet at the front, followed by Ironhide carrying Sideswipe, who was pressing his hand to his midsection, groaning in pain. Energon was bleeding from his wound, forming puddles on the ground below. Prime and Jazz came into med bay after them. The heavily injured mech was placed on a repair berth where Ratchet began with his work immediately. Sideswipe screamed in agony, struggling, but being held down by Optimus and Ironhide. I noticed the other mechs were covered in wounds and blast marks themselves, their blackened armor full of dents and scratches.

"Main energon line severed. Pressure decreasing drastically. Acidic spill under the main pump." The CMO said tonelessly, already buried in Sideswipes heaving chassis up to the elbows. Ironhide growled.

"Fragging Decepticreeps."

Prime nodded sternly, holding the smaller Autobots shoulders down. "They know the child's here. They're getting nervous."

Ironhide looked from the squirming robot over to me. I was half hiding behind one of the pillows, clutching my broken hand. "She hurt or wha?"

Ratchet sighed. "Not that I know of. Still, the kid decided to make a mess of her food. Looks like she's more of the defiant type."

I curled up in a tight ball, shivering and sobbing quietly. Something tapped against the glass box. I faintly recognized the informal language of the other silver mech in the room, Jazz. "Ya sure it's only da food, doc? Looks like it's becomin' more. It's tricklin' down her arm."

Ratchet looked up quickly, but resumed his work after a second or two. "I don't have time to take a look at her now. If I don't repair Sideswipe now, there's no telling what the acid might do to the rest of his systems. Just leave her be. If her vitals were critical, I would have been informed." After a few minutes or so Sideswipe had stopped moving completely. If he had fainted or if Ratchet had sedated him I didn't know, nor did I care. The other three mechs had left since their assistance was no longer required.

I didn't remember falling asleep again, but I woke up when I was lifted out of the box and onto a slab. I groaned in protest, not even fully awake again. I had slept for at least a few hours, but it felt like I was even more tired than before. "Oh dear. Kid, what did you do?" Ratchet took hold of my injured hand carefully, turning it over slowly. I tried to pull it away from his big fingers, but found little to no strength residing in my limbs. I tried to fight off sleep desperately, but I felt weaker every minute. My stomach hurt. I was hungry. I wanted to eat. Anything. But I wouldn't since anything edible would be offered by the accused medic. I sat, swaying back and forth tiredly while my hand was being reassembled with surprising gentleness. When Ratchet was finished with my hand, he cleaned me with a wet cloth and tried to offer me a bottle of energon again, but I refused to let him feed me.

"Come on. You need to refuel. Don't be so damn stubborn." Groaning once again, I turned my head away, optics half closed. He sighed, like so often. "Fine. If you don't want it that way..." He filled a needle-less syringe with the pink stuff and half shoved the short tube at its end down my throat. I tried to struggle, but the huge metal fingers of his kept me in place as the energon was pressed out of the syringe and directly into my stomach. I was full quickly, but that didn't mean I liked it. I had let him feed me. Okay I was half asleep and weakened but still... for now, I had lost. He once again cradled me in his hand, massaging my belly with one finger slowly. I wanted to yell at him, to fight him off or do anything against this unwanted affections, but the food had only helped in making me more tired. Undoubtedly its digestion was taking even more energy from me right now. I squirmed weakly before the warmth of Ratchets hand around me induced a deep sleep.

 


	5. Cybertronian

I felt much better when I woke up, although I was hungry again. I rubbed my optics with my fists, stretched and yawned. What time was it? No one there to ask. I grumbled. I was still angry about what Ratchet had done. Exploited my weakness to force me to eat. Well. I'd get back at him. I remembered my secret oath from when he had first tried to feed me: making him wish he had never been burdened with the task of having to take care of me. Starting with the only things I could reach; the pillows in my glass box. While they hadn't done anything wrong (well, how could they? They were just pillows after all) I was sure Ratchet wouldn't like it at all if I turned them to shreds, would he? So I did what I thought Ratchet wouldn't like. Tore them to shreds. When I had ripped the first one open I was a little stunned to see it was not filled with feathers, but with tiny, fluffy, white balls. I smiled. They were more fun than feathers anyway, although I couldn't quite tell what they were made of. Not that I cared much.

Ratchet half gasped when he entered the room, seeing me sitting in my glass box in a heap of white fluff-balls. He put the pile of strangely shaped metal sheets he had brought with him on his work bench and walked over to my box, crossing his arms in front of his chest. I felt like throwing myself into the next corner or hide beneath my cushioning to scream and cry until I passed out but instead I stuck my tongue out at the medic. Ratchet ignored it and glared at me, tapping his fingers on his forearm. I was getting him annoyed. Oh joy.

"Are we finished?"

"Not while your mind is still capable of coherent thought, no." I hurled some of the fluff- balls up above my head for emphasis and grinned, though I was feeling neither happy nor playful. Mostly, I was angry. The green mech sighed and shook his head while collecting the metal objects he had brought in earlier. He switched one of the devices on and showed it to me. It had a big screen, looked kinda like an oversized, alien iPad. There were some glyphs depicted on the screen and English words next to them.

"I guess you won't be very interested in your first lesson?" he said while I crawled under the heap of white fluff, trying to hide from the medic's vigilant optics.

"Depends. Is it about how to break out of an underground military base or on how to annoy lime green Autobot medics?"

"No."

"Then you can shove it up your... tailpipe... or whatever your equivalent of an ass is." I heard the latches of my glass prison being opened and the top being pushed aside. The rustle of fluff- balls being roamed away and big metal fingers embracing my torso tightly was followed by the sensation of being lifted out of the box. I decided to remain calm for now until a better opportunity presented itself to act differently.

"Don't be so stubborn. If you want to live with us as a member of our society, you need to learn to speak our language, about our rules and customs." My face scrunched into a grimace as he held me in one hand, sitting down on his favorite chair.

"Who's saying I'm staying here? How do you get the idea that I _want_ to live with a bunch of antisocial aliens?"

"Firstly, not all of us are antisocial. Secondly, look at yourself. You're one of us. Where else would you stay, if not with your own kind?" He had a point there. Still, I refused to settle with the thought of staying with my kidnappers, my punishers.

"I'll think of something. I'm very creative, you know?" His optics glinted with amusement.

"Oh, I don't doubt that. After all, some of our agents have been watching you. You've produced an impressive amount of pretty little pictures and trinkets, I must admit that much."

Trinkets?! Pretty little pictures? He had some nerve to refer to my work in such a way. I would have liked to snarl at him, to throw something at him, but the time wasn't right yet.

His grip on me loosened as an effect of the light conversation. That was the clue for my next attempt of escape. I quickly wriggled out of his grasp and dropped to the floor, hitting my knee in the process but ignoring it, bolting for the door as soon as my feet made contact with the cold metal surface. After a short moment of shock Ratchet stood up and darted after me. Before he could reach me though, I had found the doors were locked and I couldn't possibly push them open, so I opted for 'just get out of his reach' and ran to the high supply shelf instead. It was amazingly easy for me to climb it, considering it had the size of a four- story house and I was still roughly human sized. After only a few seconds I was up on the top and glaring down at Ratchet, who, without climbing on a chair or ladder first, couldn't quite reach me on my high perch. I found a nice (for me) big box I could pry open easily and threw the lid at the medic's head. He managed to dodge it, if only narrowly. The metal case's contents followed soon, raining down on him in the form of human- fist- sized nuts and bolts.

"Stop that! Ouch! Would you- hey!"

"NO! Do you know you've ruined my life?" I threw more bolts at him in the hope of shattering the glass of his optics in case they hit their target, which they didn't, but still. At that moment, I felt so much grief and anger boiling up inside. All those years of working, hoping, all those years of worry, for nothing! It wasn't fair! "I had plans! I could have become a professional artist or designer! I could have fulfilled my dreams! See the world! What am I supposed to do now? WHAT?!"

"I DON'T KNOW!" I stopped throwing, surprised by the Autobot's sudden desperation. He looked kinda sad, now that I looked at him.

"Look, I'm very sorry for your loss of perspective, but it wasn't _my_ decision that brought you here nor can I change anything about it." I drew back to the wall behind the shelf where he couldn't see me, sitting down and hugging my legs close.

"Shut up."

"You can't just sit there and hide from yourself. You should finally accept who you are and make the best of it."

"I SAID SHUT UP!" I heard a soft metallic sound and since it made the metal I was sitting on shudder for a split second I assumed he had put his hands on the shelf.

"Alpha, please-" I looked up. What?

"What did you just call me?"

"..."

"What did you just call me?!"

"It is... your name. Alpha. The first. It is what your mother named you." Alpha... that sounded familiar, but... no. My name was Joelle. Joelle, not Alpha.

"My name is Joelle."

"Your name is Alpha, always has been. Joelle was the name of the human girl whom you replaced. Your mother called you Alpha and that's what we're gonna call you."

"What do you know about my mother?" Silence. I heard him shift below.

"She... loved you. And she's gone. That's all I'm gonna tell you." He knew more, but wouldn't tell me. Was there something I wasn't supposed to know? Maybe he had lied, she was still out there and he just wanted to prevent any contact because she'd take me away from them? Maybe more would be revealed soon... I chose to let it be for the moment and come back to it later.

"What about my father?" Transformers didn't reproduce self- sufficiently, did they?

"I don't know nothing about him." No, they obviously didn't.

"Why won't you tell me?"

"I said I don't know who sired you." I don't believe you.

"You do know but you won't tell me, right?" He didn't answer. Instead, he changed the topic.

"Please come down there." I curled up in a tight ball again, pressing my palms to my audio receptors in a feeble attempt to block out my surroundings.

"Leave me alone."

"Alpha, please."

"No!" I stood up and shoved the next box available off the shelf. It fell to the floor with a heavy thud, the clattering cacophony of smaller metal objects on the floor telling of its contents spilling out. I leaned against the wall heavily. "Go away..." Tiredness took over again and I closed my optics briefly. My energy storage was almost depleted, my empty stomach making itself known uncomfortably. Soft clicking noises resounded, followed by the sound of parts being placed back in the box.

"Well, if you want to sit on that shelf for the rest of your life, I ain't got a problem with that. But if you're hungry, which I know you are, I suppose you'll have to come down here."

My knee was throbbing, I snorted in a distempered way. "I'd rather starve."

"I don't think so." I opened my optics with a start. I hadn't heard _him_ coming in. Turning around swiftly, I saw the huge and intimidating Autobot leader standing in the doorway and glaring at both me and Ratchet. He looked a little angry, his stance aggressive and tense. Now that I thought about it, the last time I had seen him sporting a somewhat friendly expression had been on the way here. The Prime made me feel uneasy whenever he was around, even more so than the medic. "Ratchet. What is going on here?"

The smaller Autobot stood up hastily and bowed to his superior. "Prime, what brings you here, sir?"

"I wanted to see how far you've come regarding the child's lessons, but it looks like you haven't done anything. So. What is she doing up there? What's that mess all about?" Oh here we go, I thought. Certainly Ratchet would now start complaining about how misbehaved I was and hey, maybe I'd get a different caretaker? One that would help me?

"I'm sorry. Things got a little out of hand for a moment, but everything's fine now. It was my fault." I was surprised he took the blame for something I had done, but in a way I still hoped he would be punished. However, his attempt of distraction was quickly ignored, which meant the Prime's attention was now focused on me.

"Come here. Now." I took a step back cautiously.

"No." the huge Autobot looked like he had just been slapped across the face. He was now standing between Ratchet and me. The medic was shaking his head at me, optics widened.

"Say that again." I took another step back.

"Uh... no?" While Ratchet was too small to reach me where I was standing right now, Prime wasn't. Additionally, he was much faster than I had anticipated, grabbing me with a quick sweep of his arm.

"No? Do you need a lesson concerning authority?" He held me up at his eye level, scowling. "Listen now. And listen closely. You'll do what I tell you to. You speak when I tell you to and you move when I tell you to. You will not question me, you will obey. Is that understood?" I blinked.

"You're not my boss."

"You bet your scrawny little aft I am." The next word was only mumbled, yet he seemed to have heard it clearly and I regretted saying it shortly after it had slipped my mouth.

"Asshole."

"Why you little-" he tightened his grip on me, making me gasp in pain as my body was being constricted to the point where I started seeing stars. In my pain and fright, I almost didn't notice Ratchet stepping in and grabbing his superior's arm.

"Prime, please! She's in a state of psychological shock and doesn't know what she's saying. Please give her some time to adjust; she's not used to our customs!" Prime glared daggers at the medic.

"'Not being used to our customs' is not an excuse for disrespectfulness and you know it." Ratchet looked at me with an unreadable expression.

"Her whole life has been turned upside down within merely four days. Forgive her if she's a little confused." The Autobot leader growled at his subordinate, who made a wise decision in quickly removing his hand from the bigger mech's arm. I did poorly on concealing my fear, shivering and wanting to hide. A slight whirring resonated in my own body, I felt uncomfortably warm. Cooling air started to circulate in my torso. Prime's expression softened, if only a little bit.

"Fine." he spat, putting me down on the next work bench nonchalantly. I fell down on my butt, suddenly very exhausted and too scared to do much but sit there. Ratchet twitched when his commander practically shoved his index finger into his face. "I'll check on her progress tomorrow. And if you haven't taught her the basics by then I wouldn't like being stuck in your hide." The medic nodded stiffly.

"Yes, sir." The red and blue Autobot then turned around on his heel and marched out. When he was gone, I noticed Ratchet relax visibly. He braced himself against the repair berth and sighed.

"What was that all about?" I finally dared to speak again.

"Do you have any idea how close that was?" I shrugged, then shook my head.

"Why did you defend me? You had no reason to." Ratchet cast me a tired glance.

"It was the right thing to do. Still, you must be more careful around Optimus. He's dangerous and I can't always protect you." I crossed my legs and looked down at my clawed hands, turning them over. I didn't know what to think. First Ratchet had forced me to humiliate myself, had hurt me, killed my humanity, humiliated me again and now he had protected me. Why? What was the meaning of all of this? Frustrated, I buried my face in my hands. I heard him move, but I couldn't have cared less at the moment. The whirring in my body stopped before he spoke up again.

"I had asked Prime to give you an own room where you could move about freely, but I fear we can forget about that now. Here." I looked up, only to see the refilled baby bottle in front of me again. I turned away.

"I won't let myself be fed like a baby. Especially not by you." He smiled.

"If you don't want to be treated like a sparkling, you should stop behaving like one." I blew air through my teeth, creating an irritating sound.

"Oh spare me the lecture." My stomach stung with hunger, but I wouldn't beg. If he didn't give me the bottle to drink myself, I wouldn't drink at all. "Just give me the damn bottle."

"Language."

"I can swear as much as I like, you fucking bastard." Still smiling, but shaking his head, he put the bottle down in front of me and went to work on something else. Having reassured myself he had left me alone for now, I focused my attention on the over- dimensional baby bottle. Its contents were, just like the last time I had been fed, a shimmering pink. I remembered the rich, treacly taste and its satiable effect. My stomach stung again. It was food. Pure and simple. Me: hungry, food: in front of me, conclusion: eat. Or in this case, drink. The bottle was about the size of my whole arm and so, not without some difficulties, I pulled the cap with the suckle off. It was heavy when I lifted it, but I found the sensation of the warm, sweet fluid trickling down my throat to be highly pleasing. I hated to admit that, while I was drinking, I had to wonder how I could have ever liked the taste of fruit, vegetables and meat. How could I have eaten those things that, compared to energon, tasted like nothing? Now that I thought about it the organic food kinda made me feel sick... no!

No, organic food was for humans and being a human was good. I wanted to be human again, to just be one of billions... It was amazing how much of the pink fuel fit into my stomach since only after what must have been almost two gallons of energon, I felt full, relatively content and tired. I didn't want to fall asleep on the work bench though, so I stood up and clumsily searched for a safe place to sleep. I couldn't escape now, not in my weak condition and so I hoped I'd feel better after a little nap. After all, they didn't want to kill me, just keep me here, right? I'd find a way to get out, but it would be hard, strenuous and dangerous.

So I would rest, at least for now. Ratchet didn't pay me much attention, being caught up in whatever he was doing. When I had climbed off the slab, I proceeded over to a cabinet the doors of which I thought could be opened easily. I was right. And I was lucky, since when I climbed inside, I found a large box full of rags. Some of them were grimy and blackened and they all smelled like oil, dry energon or other things I couldn't quite identify, but they were soft and so I made myself comfortable after pulling the cabinet's doors closed behind me. I curled up between the layers of fabric before sleep (or recharge...?) overtook me.

XXXXXXXXXX

I wasn't in the cabinet when I woke. Nor was I in some place I had ever been before. I sat up quickly and looked around. I was alone and the room was almost empty, except for a vacant Autobot- sized shelf, an equally huge desk and chair plus the berth I was sitting on. The only light was coming from a dim lamp above the door and from my optics. I rubbed my face with my hands, having to be careful not to scratch myself with the claws. Ratchet must have brought me here while I had been recharging, that jerk. My optics shot back to the top of the shelf. There, almost out of sight, a small vent was embedded in the wall close to the ceiling that might have been just big enough for me to fit through. Quickly the shelf was climbed and I was tugging and tearing at the access cover. It came off after a while and with quite some effort, I ripped the fan out and threw it aside. The pipe ahead of me still looked small and dark, but for now, it was the only way to escape, so I squeezed inside head first.

It was tight, but not impossible to crawl through, at least I thought so until I was three feet in. Then I was stuck. I growled angrily while trying to go on in vain. Okay, I had to go back out and find another way. Next problem, I couldn't get out. Somehow my shoulders had wedged themselves in a way that didn't allow me to go anywhere. Fuck.

I tried not to panic, but no matter how much I struggled, how I tried to get a hold of anything and push or pull myself out again, my body wouldn't budge. Finally, I surrendered to just lying in the pipe partially. Could it be that I had grown already? Probably not. Nah. Or at least, I hoped not. If I didn't grow, my chances of creeping through some tight places where the Autobots couldn't follow and, if I did get out, hiding amongst the humans were much better.

Sure I would have to find some kind of disguise, a Santa Clause costume if need be, that wouldn't stick out at this time of year anyway. I wasn't so sure what day it was today, but I knew it must have been close to Christmas and that thought alone made me want to curl up and cry. It was the time when the whole family came together to celebrate, when the scent of cookies would fill first the kitchen in my parent's house, then the living room and finally the rest of the building. It was the time when I'd decorate the Christmas tree in a way that made my father flinch but also smile at the same time, since my ideas of decoration had always been a little... strange.

I remembered a time when I had hung little plastic pumpkins, skeletons and bats onto the small green branches and my father had thought I just didn't know where we had put the Christmas decoration and that I should just admit that I had been too lazy to search for it. My parents. What were they doing now, I wondered? Searching for me? Worrying? Staring at the blank spot in front of the chimney where I had usually been sitting on a large pillow, drawing or reading?

I felt sorry for them. I hadn't even had the chance to say goodbye. Then again, I cursed myself for going with Optimus willingly and without thinking much about it in the first place. That had been stupid, just so stupid... I had left behind everything I loved _and_ my future, for what? The promise of adventure? Had I only known what I was getting myself into, I would never have gone with him... I sighed. It was too late now and as much as I wished my life had a button I could press and erase everything that had happened in the last week or so, I knew it was impossible. There was only one way: onward. Okay, in this case, considering I was stuck in a vent, probably not.

It seemed like hours passed while it couldn't have been more than a few minutes before the door opened, someone stepped in and closed it again. I couldn't see for my body was obscuring my view, but I heard him move through the room.

"Alpha. Where are you hiding?" It was Ratchet. Should I call for help? I couldn't move...

"I'm... here. I'm stuck." I said, the sound waves bouncing off the metallic walls of my temporary prison and creating an unpleasant echo.

"You're..." I heard him move "...oh. Oh. There you are." Though I couldn't see it, it sounded like he was moving the shelf aside. His hands grasped my legs gently, but he didn't pull. "It's your shoulders, right?"

"What?"

"Your shoulders are stuck."

"I think so." He paused, obviously thinking.

"You know I don't want to risk damaging you. I'll get some lubrication."

"Pig."

"I don't mean it _that_ way. Just... wait here."

"Oh really." He came back a short time later and sprayed me with what I assumed to be oil, then tried to carefully pull me out of the ventilation system. It took a few minutes and it was exhausting, but eventually Ratchet managed to free me of this embarrassing situation. So now there I was sitting on his palm, full of oil and with scratched shoulders. I stared at my hands in my lap. This was awkward. His index finger brushed over my smeared cheek and I pushed him away. He shook his head, a small smile flashing over his face for a split second.

"Lets get you cleaned up, shall we? You'll be good or I won't help you next time." He walked out the room and I realized the door led to the storage room behind med bay. Ratchet entered another room with me; it was the one I had been brought to after the surgery. Now that I looked at it, it seemed to be some kind of alien bathroom. It held several tanks filled with various liquids, and a huge shower in the corner. "So while we're at it" he said. He then put me down on top of some machine reminding me of an over dimensioned dishwasher before taking some small bottles out of a cabinet. "We could very well start your lessons."

"No."

"Why are you making this so difficult?"

"Because I want to."

"Look." Ratchet rubbed some of the liquid from the first bottle into a soft rag and handed it to me so I could clean myself. "There are some rules on this base and in our society in general that you need to know. Some of our people, like our Prime, are kind of strict concerning those and I wouldn't recommend for you to clash with him. So please, for your own sake you should at least let me tell you the basics."

"Just leave me alone." He stopped whatever he had been doing over at the cabinet and looked at me.

"I know you don't want to be here and to be honest, neither do I. But sitting around sulking won't help." He leaned in close, his voice barely above a whisper. "Listen, I... I understand you want to leave. I really do. Don't get me wrong, I _want_ to help you, I just _can't_."

"If you understand it then why did you try to stop me? Why didn't you let me leave?" He sighed.

"Simple. You're not ready to leave. Even if you made it out of base, what then? You don't know enough of our world yet to survive alone. You need to learn certain things first. About our people, about your possibilities, about the dangers. About yourself. You can't just run out there without a plan; you'll be caught or worse."

"I still don't get why you'd want to help me. You. Of all people."

"I know the Autobots and I know the Decepticons. And I know Prime. I know what's going to happen and I want to spare you that fate. I know you're a good little femme, even if you might not always behave like it. I think you deserve a chance." I closed my optics. This sounded so irrational, and it probably was. He probably just wanted to trick me, to make me trust him so they could go on with their devilish plans without further complications.

"You teach me things that might help me to escape for good. But what do you expect in return?"

"I expect cooperation. Nothing more."

"Really."

"Really."

"How am I supposed to know if I can trust you?"

"Do you have a choice?" No, I probably didn't. Still the thought of trusting the Autobot medic didn't settle well with me at all. I was finished wiping off the oil by now, the best I could at least.

"Fine. So. What am I up against?"

XXXXXXXXXX

"What about the colonies?"

"In the golden age, Cybertron had a total of 47 colony planets, most of which were lost during the riots leading up to the great war." I droned on, not actually interested in the history of the alien's home planet. God, this was like being questioned in school. "Now it has got... merely... seven?"

"Eight. But alright. You may resume your lessons now." With that Prime turned around and left. I showed off my lean middle finger again after he had closed the door behind him.

"You wish you stupid, shit-eating, oversized, motherfucking excuse of a fender." I hissed cantankerously, but quietly. The Autobot commander was just... just... such an asshole. A few minutes ago, he had just entered the room in all his audacity and had started to ask all sorts of questions, some even in Cybertronian, easy ones of course, what my name was and such (I had told him my name was Joelle, which he had begrudgingly accepted as an answer), about decent cybertronian behavior, about the politics, history and the culture of their people. I walked over to the table's edge where my blanket was waiting for me, sat down on it and wrapped the rest around myself. I had noticed I was feeling cold almost constantly; maybe it had something to do with the fact that I now had such a small mass and lacked insulation of any kind.

"You better don't let him hear you using such vulgar vocabulary. He doesn't like swearing and he doesn't like being insulted." Ratchet said from somewhere behind me.

"I'm not insulting people to do them a favor." I flipped through the datapad he had given to me earlier, which was actually too big for me to handle, but what the hell. The alien glyphs started to make sense slowly, even without the English translation. I noticed I could now take in more and remember it more correctly than I had been able to before I had been turned into... this. It seemed like something had changed in my brain, no, processor, as well. I was learning things faster. It might have been the fuel. The dictionary part of the datapad was even a little fun to play with. I tried to say something in Cybertronian, a rather stupid human joke roughly translated into the other language, only to have Ratchet inform me of the word order being incorrect and me pronouncing some of the words weirdly. "Besides," he stated matter- of- factly, "I don't get what's supposed to be funny about that. It doesn't even make sense."

"Oh I don't expect an underdeveloped creature such as you to understand such sophisticated humor."

"What are you implying?" He sat a new bottle of energon down beside where I was sitting before leaning onto the table, braced on his forearms.

"You're always whining about how little you appreciate human culture and so on. Don't you think it's impolite to insult another's heritage?" I looked up at him, he looked back.

"I'm not insulting human customs. Besides, it's not your heritage." Again, I pulled the suckle off the bottle, tossing it aside. Why did he even bother with those dumb things?

"That's beside the point. You can't just condemn civilizations that might be different from what you know."

"What have I said that makes you think I don't appreciate human achievements?" I took a sip of the energon and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.

"Oh you know, when you're talking about cybertronian culture you're always like 'this works this way and it's waaay different from what the humans use to do and oh my god Cybertron is so awesome and Earth sucks' and so on."

"The humans are a rather young species and I'm sure they'll learn in time. You need to consider that our civilization is way older and there's no telling what human society will be like in a few million years. Although I doubt they will last that long."

"Why?" He snorted, pushing himself up again so he was standing completely upright again.

"They seem to have an urge to destroy each other. I guess they will kill every living being on the planet before their civilization has a chance to bloom. It's so... primitive." I laughed, almost choking on my food. I still wasn't quite used to this body. And my voice still sounded funny.

"Says the guy whose species is going extinct because of some stupid war. How primitive is that?"

"Well... well, you might have a point there. Yes, it's kind of paradoxical now that I think of it." He chuckled although the matter we were discussing was one that was actually posing a rather inconvenient and tragic threat to his species' very existence. After I had emptied a quarter of the bottle, I decided to address another topic.

"How does transforming work?"

"It's a rather complicated combination of physical adjustments, coding and body control. It takes a lot of practice, too. Only adult bots can transform, so don't even try. You'll just end up hurting yourself."

"I can't even do the trick with transforming single body parts into I don't know, tools or weapons?"

"No. And I doubt you'll ever be allowed weapons."

Grumbling, I turned back to my fuel.

 


	6. Shadows of Christmas

I woke up in the room with the bed, desk and shelf again, which was, I had been told, _my_ room. Ratchet had explained that it had originally been intended to be his private chamber, but that he rather recharged in his office or the storage and therefore never used it. I wasn't so sure if that was entirely true (recharging at his desk didn't sound very comfortable), but I was grateful for the privacy, even if the furnishing was kind of dull. Dull was an understatement, but… well.

I yawned, my mouth opening much wider than it would have had I still been human. There were some quite astounding aspects to this body, I had to admit that much. It was far more flexible than an ordinary human body, I could move much quicker too and yet I felt weak. Maybe it was because of the presence of the much bigger Autobots or that this was practically the body of a mere baby, nevertheless I didn't think I could overpower _anything_ right now. Not even a guinea pig. I blinked. _That_ had definitely not been there at the time I went to bed. A few feet on my bed that was big enough to accommodate a bot like Ratchet and thus was actually way too big for someone of my size, there was a large cubical box, wrapped up in what seemed to be... gift wrap paper?

At least to me it was large. I faintly remembered watching a cartoon where someone would always receive a gift, unwrap it happily only to have it blow up in their face when I had been a little child, but then again, it probably weren't _my_ memories. Crazy. Cautiously I stood up, my curiosity getting the better of me. The paper was light blue with yellow dots and a, for a box of that size, too small golden bow on top.

A little note had been attached to the bow; it was a bit creasy as if the person who had prepared it had had trouble to handle such a tiny piece of paper. It read "Merry Christmas". I had forgotten about Christmas. It was the morning of December the 25th and I had completely forgotten about it. Melancholy returned. The past days I had been busy learning all sorts of stuff, scheming and trying to avoid contact with anyone (I failed miserably), I had been so occupied it didn't even occur to me that time had flowed on without me.

Time. That was something I had found out was precious now. I only had two years. About two years until my body was full grown, until... I needed to escape as soon as possible. And hopefully, even if I felt weak, I would be able to overpower a soldier, which was essential to my plan. Well, first things first. The package being filled with explosives seemed unlikely, so I decided to find out about its contents. Shredding the cardboard box was easy enough with my metal claws and soon I had a clear view of what was inside. Canvasses in various sizes and shapes, a small easel, turpentine, brushes and oil colors. I couldn't describe how happy I was to have something, _anything_ to work with again. Something I could express myself with, even if it would be just to myself, something to clear my thoughts, get them in order.

I wondered who had left the present here for me. Probably Ratchet. Most likely. Who else did I know here? Optimus Prime? He probably didn't give a shit about what I liked or wanted, judging by his behavior towards me. All the others I had not even talked to. It couldn't possibly be from someone outside of this base either. It had to be from Ratchet. But why would he spend money just so I had something to play with?

The painting supplies were rather high class too, as in pretty expensive. I knew the brands. The ones I had only been able to dream of whenever I had visited my favorite supplier in the next bigger city. With the diligent touch of an expert I arranged the tools on my bed, carefully and with a certain amount of awe like I was handling precious and unique hallows. I placed a medium sized canvas on the easel and- nothing. Usually, I would have had trouble deciding for implementing one of millions of my ideas at a time, but not now. Now, there was nothing.

There was a knock on my door. With a voice that mirrored my now suddenly foul mood, I answered. It was Ratchet. He didn't seem to notice all the stuff on my bed, instead picking me up so I could have my morning energon and continue my lessons. Cybertronian rules of conduct. Again. This was useless. I asked for some datapads on anatomy, on battle techniques and things like that but all I got was a rather inaccurate one (probably designed for little children) about 'The wonders of your body'. I felt silly reading it.

"Ratchet?"

"Yes?" He was, as always, occupied with repairing something; I thought I recognized it as a piece of armor.

"You're a doctor."

"Yes."

"You'd probably be the bot one should ask if the question has something to do with the cybertronian physique."

"I guess so."

"How do you reproduce?" He stopped whatever he had been doing.

"Why would you want to know that?" I shrugged, turning the childish datapad off and flicking it aside carelessly.

"Curiosity, I guess."

"Well, uh..." He resumed working on the piece of metal before plainly staring at it for a moment and rising to retrieve another tool from his huge supply shelf. "Do you know how humans reproduce?"

"Oh please. I'm not a baby anymore."

"Practically you-"

"Yeah yeah, I know. Sparkling, not full grown, blah blah." I snuggled into my blanket on his workbench, ready for a cybertronian version of 'the talk'. "So how _does_ it work?"

"It..." he scratched the back of his head. Why was this making him nervous? "It kind of resembles the human way to a certain degree. There are no fluids though, no exchange of matter, the genetic information is passed on through sequences of electronic impulses. Also, when the infant is born, it is merely a spark without a body which is afterward transferred into a protoform that needs to mature further in a gestation pod before it hatches." The wires and hydraulics in my arm glinted in the cool neon light as I flexed them thoughtfully.

"How long does it take?" Ratchet braced his pointy elbows on the workbench's surface, cupping his lower face with both of his palms. The situation seemed to be rather awkward for him, but I didn't care. Hell, if he was a doctor, he should be able to explain this competently.

"The act itself takes about ten to thirty minutes. It is unlikely though for the femme to conceive after only a single intercourse, so the code often has to be transferred four or five times to ensure there are no errors. The duration of the pregnancy is usually about three months for mechs, five for a Prime and eight for a femme sparkling."

"Wait. Why five for a Prime? I thought that was only a rank, not a third gender." The medic looked bewildered, obviously he didn't quite understand my confusion.

"It is... much more than a simple rank. Primes are an advanced variation of the cybertronian race. Equipped with more durable and in relation to their size much stronger bodies, with processors usually specialized on strategy or connatural realms and with a certain amount of sheer stubbornness they are born to lead, without exceptions. However, a Prime's offspring isn't automatically a Prime himself since the genes marking a sparkling as a Prime are rarely passed on."

"And all the others are the workers serving the beehive's queen, aka the Prime." He frowned.

"Well, no. We do have sequences implemented in our programming which are supposed to ensure we obey a Prime if one's around, but we still are more of individuals than mere workers. Besides, the workers of a beehive can't reproduce while technically, we can. There used to be more Primes in the past, but they have a tendency to… dislike each other. Now, only Optimus is left." He heaved a big and heavy toolbox from the floor beside him onto the table. I felt the strong tremor of it hitting the surface none too gently, my arms automatically grasped at anything within their reach for support. Ratchet then started emptying it onto the table, hands full of wrenches, screwdrivers, pincers and other doohickeys piled in a heap before me. "Where was I?"

"Pregnancy."

"Oh yes." He pulled a rather large tool I couldn't quite classify out of the box, moved a lever attached to it around a bit while listening to its inner workings. He then chucked it over his shoulder casually; it landed precisely in the trash bin. "As I said, the durance differs depending on the sparkling's gender. However, unlike human females, cybertronian femmes don't alter their shape during pregnancy since there is no body growing inside of them so to the outside, there is no visual indication whether a femme is carrying or not. Most adult Cybertronians will be able to tell by her scent though. Also, the birth is less painful and much quicker. Five minutes maximum for the actual emergence, following roughly an hour of the sparkling announcing their arrival. The time in the gestation pod varies, but it takes at least four years until the infant hatches and can start its growth."

He started cleaning the now empty toolbox with a small, but thankfully rather quiet vacuum cleaner. I looked down at my own body, imagining there would be a spark growing... wherever it would beneath the metal. I didn't like the thought at all. I was afraid to ask the next question, but I'd probably have imagined all kinds of worst case scenarios if I hadn't asked.

"You said the procedure resembles the human way. To... what extent?" His optics swiped the room quickly, no idea why, before a hologram emanated from them, faintly resembling the one of my own body I had seen before the surgery. To me, it seemed like that had been an eternity ago, although it had actually just been a few days. A second body joined the first hologram, but it seemed to be male instead of female. He started explaining the parts of anatomy required for reproduction, pointing out how they fit into each other and would move together so the best possible connection could be established. I felt my legs clenching together unconsciously.

"I don't want that. I... really don't want that." The holograms disappeared, but Ratchet said nothing. My arms wrapped around my small shivering body in a vain gesture to protect myself from the world. "Is there any way other than running away to avoid this?" His shoulders dropped a little, he continued his work with now polishing the tools he had previously splayed out on the table and putting them back into the box.

"You know" he said quietly, the faintest hint of depression audible in his voice "I would very much like to tell you that there's nothing to be afraid of and that we all just want to do what's best for you, but I can only speak for myself. I'd like to tell you that you have a choice and yet I know you don't."

"There _has_ to be something that can be done!" I stood up and stamped my foot in anger. "If you want to help me, then why can't you just make up a story and tell them I'm barren or something like that? If you're the only medic here, who would be able to disprove it?" Said medic closed his optics briefly, venting air and shaking his head.

"They will know when the time has come. They will know. We can't hide it from them and when he finds out, I bet Prime won't waste any time." We. Did he just say 'we'?

"It was you right?"

"What."

"The present. It was you who left it in my room."

"I... thought you'd like it." He didn't look at me, still fumbling with his tools.

"I do. Really. Thank you. Still" I retrieved the datapad I had thrown aside and put it on a neat stack along with the others. A strenuous task considering it was bigger than I. "I don't get why you'd want to help me. After all, you're one of _them_."

"Personal reasons. Doesn't concern you." He stood up and walked away, bringing the conversation to a sudden end.

XXXXXXXXXX

Christmas passed by without anyone losing a word about it, the only indication of this holiday even existing being the present I had received. So now there I was sitting in front of the still white canvas in my room, inspiration gone. Expressionism sounded good at the time, but I couldn't even decide for a color scheme, the oil paint still sealed and laid out on the bed. Finally, I decided to open ocher. To me, depression was ocher.

The viscous paint landed on a piece of cardboard box (I didn't have a palette) with a splat. I smeared it on the cardboard with a medium sized brush; it was smooth, the color itself was very well covering and vibrant... but still I didn't know what to paint. I didn't want to just start without a plan either since I would have been wasting material then... ocher didn't sound so good after all.

Why were there so few colors in the world anyway? In the end, it all came down to yellow, red, blue, black and white and that was it. I wanted another, a universal color, something more, a color that could depict my thoughts, something complex, one that could even attempt to grasp the concept of life... but such a color did not, and never would exist, nor a word to name it.

But why? Why not? How was I to illustrate my feelings or thoughts with the existing banality?! I could not! It made no sense, the colors formed a cage, one that I strived to break, just like the confinements this very room formed... I screamed, threw the cardboard with the paint and the brush against the wall; it left a big smear of ocher paint on the otherwise gray surface. I started pacing on the bed, shuddering and covering my mouth with my hand firmly.

This was driving me crazy. Was I even myself anymore? Everything had seemed to be so easy before these monsters had come into my life, everything had been so full of color, full of activity, dynamic life, constantly renewing itself and presenting an innumerable amount of new ideas, but not now. Now, everything was just gray in gray, lifeless, artificial, monotonous. I let myself fall flat onto my back, the bed below me gave a little, but not too much... its softness was comparable to an old car tire. The ceiling above me. It was also gray. It was nothing like the sky, the sky that I had not seen for days, but to me it seemed like an eternity... I curled up on my side and started sobbing. I needed to get out. I'd die here if I couldn't.

XXXXXXXXXX

I hadn't meant to insult the Prime, this time I really hadn't. But when he had snapped at me I had just lost it and... I had known the moment the collapsible tube of yellow paint had hit his back armor and had ripped and emptied its contents all over him that this would have serious consequences. I hadn't even had an idea of why he was actually here or what he wanted, he had just come in, obviously wanting to say something, but had instead started to fuss because I had not bowed to him like manners dictated and so on. When I had responded equally it had only gotten worse.

His optics had seemed aflame with white hot rage and his voice had risen above levels I had thought him capable of. He had practically screamed at me, making me shrink back behind my blanket, what I was thinking who I was, if I even had the slightest idea what would usually be the penalty for assaulting the Prime, if I had a screw loose etc etc. I tried to hit his soft spot (in case he had one) by starting to wail softly, but he had looked right through my act (or maybe he just hadn't cared if he made me cry), had grabbed me off my bed and taken me with him.

Ratchet had promptly been shoved out of the way and further on ignored when he had tried to step in and with me clutched firmly in his huge hand, Prime had stormed out of med bay to a, to me, unknown destination. Now, being stuck in the huge lift with the commander and going further down to the lower levels of the base, I was slowly starting to panic again. Where was he taking me? What was he planning? Would he hurt me? I looked up at his stern face, he didn't spare me a glance, not even when I made a sound similar to clearing my throat. I asked where he was taking me, but he didn't respond. I sighed tiredly after trying to wriggle out of his hand fruitlessly.

"Look, I'm sorry. I know what I did wrong and I won't do it again. I promise. I've learned my lesson." The lift doors opened and he stepped out. These corridors looked different than those of the other level, less familiar, darker, foreboding. A mech I didn't know was standing guard at a corner we rounded, saluting to the Prime when he passed by. I thought I heard a faint scream from somewhere down the hallway. There were numbers on the many steel doors on either side of the corridors. Finally, Optimus spoke, quietly but menacingly.

"You actually want me to believe you're sorry and that you'll improve? Only to deceive me when I'm not paying attention, right. You will learn your lesson. You can start now." With that he opened a large steel door with the number 101 neatly stencil sprayed onto it with white paint, released me into the room and slammed it shut again.

I didn't even have an opportunity to object. I stood up quietly and took in my surroundings. It was pitch black in here. No light on the ceiling, no light shining through from beneath the door... I reached out with my arms and moved forward until my palms met it. Not even my optics had enough light to illuminate even the smallest patch of it... I put my audio receptor against the door to maybe hear something from outside, but there was nothing. Not the smallest sound. I turned around. I couldn't see a thing.

"Hello?" My voice sounded a little muffled in here. Slowly I started tracing the wall with my fingertips, exploring the room with my hands alone. It was completely empty. The walls were absolutely smooth, no cracks in its surface, no dents or bumps, just cold and black perfection. I couldn't tell how high they were, at least too high for me to reach the ceiling by jumping. There was nothing I could have climbed onto, it had no corners: it was round.

When I was sure I had circled it at least twice I realized I couldn't even find the door anymore, it didn't stand out from the walls at all, its seams were blending in perfectly. While I had to admit the accuracy this room had been crafted with was astounding, I also started to see what seemed to be its purpose: disorientation. Deprivation of sensory input. It was rather cold in here, too. I started pacing with my arms around my torso: ten steps from one wall to the other. A medium sized Cybertronian probably couldn't even sit down in here. I walked back and forth until my feet started to ache and I got tired. I lost track of time completely and soon I started to get hungry. Very, very hungry. There was simply no corner to curl up in, so I opted for just sitting down with my back against the walls and my knees drawn up. The constant cold kept me from recharging.

What would happen as soon as someone let me out of this dark cell again? Would I be able to pretend to be too weak to even stand up just to wriggle out of the mech's fingers to make an attempt at escape? Or would I actually _be_ that weak when the time came? Would they hurt me someway if I wasn't? I was pretty sure they wouldn't let me die in this room, deprived of energy as I was becoming quickly... on its own accord, my body started to move again, rocking back and forth gently, my mind tried to settle on more comfortable thoughts.

Memories of the wind caressing my skin, of the smell of flowers and wheat fields, of the open sky above me... but as much as I thought back to those happier times, my mind was always forcefully shoved back to the present when another shiver rocked my fragile limbs. Was I allowed to hate them for this torture?

Hate was bad. It was probably the worst thing in existence and yet I craved it at the moment. Hate was very bad. It made people blind to everything around them, it spun the threads which weaved their own doom- still, nothing would have been easier right now than to outright hate Optimus Prime. Ratchet I could understand, a bit at least. Although I didn't quite get why he of all people would want to help me, why _he_ behaved so very different from anyone else, I did see how it would endanger him if anyone found out of him helping me and I kind of understood his reluctance. Prime, however... he seemed to be a plain asshole, the complete opposite of the many versions of him depicted in the fictional media. Were the Autobots the bad guys after all? Sure, the government seemed to cooperate with them, but that didn't mean much. I didn't trust politicians anyway.

So how was I to know? I was denied pretty much any kind of useful information. I didn't know where I was, how I would get out of here and when, what was to become of me. All I knew was why they kept me here, which obviously was to save their species from extinction and that didn't settle well with me at all. And it got even worse: by studying all that crap on etiquette, I had learned about my rights in cybertronian society which were practically nonexistent.

They had nothing even remotely comparable to the basic human rights, their highest element of legislative remaining the Prime; I was fucked if my life depended on that shithead. I caught myself being amused at the thought of our roles suddenly being reversed, with me being Prime and him being my subordinate whom I could treat however I liked... I halted. Revenge. Cruelty. No. That wasn't me- or was it? I wasn't so sure of that anymore.

This everlasting silence was driving me nuts, so I started to hum a tune, but it came out sounding so pitiful, so miserable I couldn't bear it and so I stopped. Time had lost its meaning, it didn't exist here. I started scratching my arm, softly at first, but becoming more furious, finally dragging my claws across my metal skin with force, drawing sparks and energon. Jerking out of my hypnosis like state I quickly put my hands to my sides. This was self- injury. Not good. I couldn't go insane here, I couldn't, _couldn't_ , I was sure the door would open any moment now... but it didn't. I don't remember when my brain, or processor, ceased thinking altogether, my optics merely staring into the darkness before me. Nothing, there was just nothing. I wanted to cry, but I had no tears.

A few times a rather small flap in the door was opened, a can of energon was pushed through and every time I slowly crawled over to it, searching for it with my shivering fingers and drinking the whole content at once. It wasn't much, barely enough to keep me from losing consciousness. Then I would always move back to the wall and curl up to wait for the next ration. There wasn't anything else. I had the faint feeling the energon came irregularly, maybe to prevent my time from being structured, but I couldn't tell... I had been reduced to a mere animal in a cage, merely vegetating, unable to form coherent thoughts... that was until one day (or night?), the door opened; it was like being struck by lightning, the brightness of the hallway outside hurt my temporarily blind optics, the unbearable noise of someone, whoever it was, entering the room to pick me up making my audios ring painfully.

They probably thought it was enough, that they had broken me... but something else had long since formed in my mind and soul, burning itself in irreversibly. It was one single wish, a desire stronger than anything else: I wanted to live. Living meant living in freedom, everything else was death. Gray- black death. I didn't care about the cost anymore. I would be free, one way or another.

 


	7. Rain

I slowly started to see again, I could only distinguish light and dark, but it was getting better by the second. Who the hell was carrying me? He was probably a little taller than Ratchet, slimmer though, but it wasn't anyone I knew, that was for sure. After a while I could spot his dark silver and black armor, a Porsche logo on his chest, next to the Autobot sigil... but who was it? I groaned and moved a little in his hands. Where was he taking me? My optics felt like they were on fire, my voice capacitor felt rough, but still I tried to speak.

"Ngh... where-"

"Quiet. You've got an appointment." I closed my optics from the bright light around me, trying to sit up in the mech's hands, but he pushed me back down again. It took a while until he rapped on another unfamiliar door. Someone from inside said 'Enter'. I knew that voice. I knew it and it made me shiver in discomfort.

The door opened and I was released onto the floor, the door closed again. I curled my fingers, having fallen onto my hands and knees, I felt the carpeting beneath me... wait, carpeting? What for? Dark blue, almost black, soft carpeting. I looked up, only to be confronted with the Autobot commander, who was sitting behind the largest desk I had ever seen, his fingers laced and his elbows braced on the desk. I sat back on my haunches slowly, he seemed to be seizing me up with his optics. Was he expecting me to say something? And then I got the idea. Staying on my knees, I leaned forward slightly, bowing my head to him.

"Good girl." He said quietly, standing up from his large chair and striding over to me. "Very good. Have we had enough?" I didn't look up, instead I just nodded softly. A large finger moved beneath my chin to push my face up so I had to face the imposing mech, who had knelt down beside me. How somebody his size could move so soundlessly was a mystery to me. "Will you be good now or do you want to go back to room 101?" I shivered at the prospect of being imprisoned in that dark room again. The finger started stroking the underside of my jaw gently. To me, the touch was repulsive, no matter how delicate he tried to make it.

"I... I'll be good."

"I'll be good _what_."

"Sir." He smiled, it made me shiver. There was something cruel about his smile, something lecherous. He stood back up and went to sit at his desk again, I stood up cautiously.

"Who gave those supplies to you." Prime said marginally while studying a datapad.

"What 'supplies' do you mean...sir?" He shot me a sharp look over the edge of the datapad, as if he wanted to say 'don't fuck with me'.

"Answer me, femme." I looked down at my hands. Ratchet would probably be in trouble if I told. On the other hand, I wondered why he was asking me anyway since Ratchet was the only logical choice; after all, there actually wasn't really anyone beside him (except Prime, of course) I had much contact with, so... but while a few days ago I would have very willingly made the medic look bad in front of his superior, I now found I didn't really want to cause him any trouble. What the hell was wrong with me? Was I growing to like that creep?

"I... don't know. One morning, it was just there. I don't know where they came from."

"Alpha." He warned. I looked back up at him. He had put the datapad aside and was now watching me intently, metallic brows furrowed. I started chewing my bottom lip, not knowing what to say, almost biting myself when he slammed his fist onto the desk loudly. "Answer me! Who was it?!"

"I... it was... I guess-"

"SAY IT!"

"It... um... Ratchet?" There. I had said it. It made me feel bad, but what was I supposed to do? He leaned back in his huge chair, relaxing noticeably.

"That wasn't so hard, now was it?" His attention turned back to the datapad, his optics analyzing the (most likely cybertronian) script quickly. "The paint will be confiscated until further notice. Maybe, if you behave, you can have it back. Prowl!" The mech who had brought me here opened the door from the outside, stepping into the room and bowing his head to his Prime. So that was Prowl? I had imagined him to look... different. Optimus motioned towards me with his head, the lights on the ceiling reflecting on his brilliantly polished blue helmet. "Take her back to med bay."

"Yes, sir." Prowl moved to pick me up and retreated through the door, but the commander spoke up again before he had exited completely.

"And Alpha. I case you want to pull a stunt like that again let yourself be told that there are much worse punishments in store for you than room 101."

 

XXXXXXXXXX

 

I didn't struggle at all while Prowl brought me back to med bay, at least not until a good opportunity was at hand, which gave me the benefit of not being held too tightly and that was a mistake on Prowl's side. The chance to escape appeared in the shape of a human soldier patrolling a hallway we passed, armed with a machine gun and rounding a corner behind us. A magnet strip card was fastened to his belt; probably some sort of key. My spark's pace was quickening rapidly, but Prowl didn't seem to suspect anything. Good.

Moving quickly, I wriggled out of his grasp, landed on the floor and ran, leaving a stunned Autobot behind. Before he could even react and come after me, I had already rounded the corner where the soldier had disappeared and jumped to tackle the man. He let out a surprised yelp and hit the ground hard, receiving a hard blow to the back of his head when he tried to struggle and throw me off.

But now I had the problem of the black and silver Autobot thundering towards me. What to do, what do do... I grabbed the machine gun the soldier had been carrying, losing precious time while fiddling with the strap which had been holding the gun to his shoulder. I tried to fire it at Prowl, but it didn't work. Was it even loaded? It should have been. I had no experience in the handling of guns at all, so I didn't know... wait, there had to be some kind of lock... a little black button at the side of it. I pressed it and tried again to fire- and it worked.

The kickback was so hard it almost knocked me over, but I remained on my feet, firing multiple bursts at Prowl's face. He howled in pain, his hands flew up to cover his optics; obviously I had done something right. With him now merely stumbling towards me, I had enough time to steal the magnetic card off of the soldier's belt and run.

I wasn't so sure if using the elevator was such a good idea and so I ran back to where I had seen a human sized stairway before. I tried to rip open the  door of steel and bulletproof glass, but the broad handle didn't budge, only when I inserted the magnetic card into a slot beside the door could it be opened. I hurried up the stairs, taking three or four steps at a time, the machine gun clasped firmly in my hands.

I had shot at someone. I had actually hurt someone. What about the soldier? If I had wounded him fatally, if he died- no, no, I had to stop thinking like that right now. I needed to get out of here, as quickly as possible. No alarms had been triggered yet, they probably didn't know I was trying to escape right now. After many many many levels, the staircase ended, so I exited through the door at the top. I entered a vacated locker room and, glad not to have encountered anyone, grabbed an abandoned black military jacket and ran on, but stopped abruptly.

There was a tabular glass case with keys hanging on hooks inside, car keys, close to the next door. I actually didn't expect the magnetic card to work at its lock, but surprisingly, it did. Without further ado, I grabbed a gray GMC key and ran out, forgetting the card in the lock. I came out in the hangar where I had first arrived. I was on a raised grating platform in front of a human sized in- built two story tall set of rooms. From here I could see the multiple vehicles below, the huge gate through which the sunlight was illuminating the front part of the hangar- and the soldiers in front of it.

I ducked, but I was pretty much out in the open here. I needed to get down to ground level. I pressed the release mechanism on the key and seeing the flashers of a nearby black truck light up, I made my way over to it silently just when the alarms started to sound.

There was sudden agitation in the hangar and I did have some trouble hiding behind trucks, quad bikes and motorcycles to avoid the soldiers suddenly running about. I managed to open the now open truck's driver's door quietly and crawled inside, hiding behind the steering wheel and putting the machine gun down on the passenger seat while plugging the key into the ignition lock. I had only just started my driving lessons not long before the incident at my school, so I wasn't really a good driver yet but I did know the basics.

At least the truck was an automatic- no danger of killing the engine. I discreetly put my foot down on the brake before turning the key. The motor hummed to life and I released the brake to slowly pull out of the space between two other trucks. I heard soldiers shouting and kicked the accelerator to the metal, making the car lurch forward, knocking over a motorcycle in the progress. But as I now was speeding towards the exit, the soldiers tried to block it, aiming their guns at me. I honked, but they didn't move out of the way. I wouldn't stop. If they didn't move, I'd run them over. They started shooting, I ducked behind the steering wheel. I could barely see through the windshield anymore, at the time I reached the lowering gate the front of the car was probably laced with holes. The soldiers had jumped out of the way in the last possible moment, now shooting at the car from the back. Something impacted with the rear portion of the truck, making it screech to the left a little, but I caught it quickly (thank god there was nothing in my way anymore) and sped on. The gunshots stopped. Another engine howled behind me and a quick look into the cracked rear mirror told me it was Jazz chasing after me, followed by a cloud of dust, the silver sports car quickly closing in and pulling up beside me.

"Stop right now, femme!!" He shouted, but I wouldn't even think of listening to him. His driver's door opened and started to transform, but I stopped the process by slamming the truck's side against the smaller Autobot. He yelped, but returned to the truck's side quickly. "STOP!!" I hit him again and again, still I couldn't shake him off. We were nearing the barbed wire fence surrounding the whole area, but the soldiers at the gate didn't shoot, probably because they didn't want to hit Jazz. The splinters of the gate flew through the air as I tore through it, Jazz still hard on my heels. As I was nearing top speed, he pulled past and in front of me by a few hundred meters and transformed, aiming his own gun at me. I needed to avoid him at all cost. The ground beside the dust road was rather uneven but, considering I was driving an ATV and he was a sports car, I saw my advantage, hit the brakes and after reducing my speed severely, I pulled off the road. Jazz, obviously surprised, transformed hastily and tried to chase after me again- _tried_.

The stones and bumps of the dusty ground were getting to his low carriage, and soon he was stuck and forced to transform and try to run after me in bipedal mode, but I left him behind quickly. He shot the ground in front of me a few times so small craters were created, probably in the hope of me driving into them and crashing, but I avoided them narrowly by drawing aside quickly. My head hit the truck's roof yet again when the vehicle jumped over another bump, but I ignored it euphorically.

I had made it! Made it out of the base!! Wind was rushing through the damaged windshield, I could see the sky above me and mountains in front of me... I needed to go into hiding somewhere. Get rid of the car. Change the direction of my escape quickly, mislead the Autobots. A city. That would be perfect. Something labyrinthine where I could hide... some location that would hopefully force them to tread carefully to avoid too much collateral damage. I saw cars glinting in the distance and changed my course to the right. Civilization was it. But I would have to wait until nightfall so I could move undetected by the population...

 

XXXXXXXXXX

 

By the time it got dark I had found a patch of green where I hid the truck behind some large bushes, but not before searching it for useful things. I did find an emergency canister of gas, a flashlight and some small set of tools (two screwdrivers, universal pliers and a wrench) in the trunk.

Of course the Autobots and their human allies had already started searching for me, but they obviously hadn't expected for me to stay off road most of the time, so thankfully, they hadn't spotted me yet, at least I hoped so. It was getting dark and cloudy quickly and I twitched when a bang was heard nearby, but the following light show in the sky suggested that it must have been close to New Year and people just wanted to start celebrating early.

I walked along the road quietly, dressed in the stolen jacket, the gun neatly hidden underneath. It felt great to smell the fresh air again, to hear the faint rumble of thunder... avoiding the light cones beneath the street lights, I kept looking for a phone booth. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have had trouble finding one, but now that pretty much everyone was carrying a cellphone, it was a whole different story.

I reached some kind of shopping district, which was devoid of people save for two or three fast food restaurants. I could smell the burgers and fries, although I kept a few hundred feet away. What was that over there? A pay phone. In the shadows of a supermarket, old and smeared with graffiti, but it would do. _If_ it was still in working condition.

I wasn’t stupid enough to call my parents. That would have been far too obvious. No, it had to be someone the Autobots probably weren’t watching, but someone who would definitely help me…

I didn't have any change on me, so I was forced to make a collect call in the hope that my friend Chelsea would accept it. When I was asked to say my name, I used only my initials to not make it too freaking obvious to anyone listening in who exactly was calling. After all, I was pretty sure this phone wasn't particularly safe. After a few times of ringing, Chelsea picked up.

"Hello?"

"Chelsea?" I fiddled with the cable attached to the handset nervously. "It's me, Joey." Silence. Then she practically shouted into the phone in excitement.

"Joelle?! Is that really you?? Where the hell have you been? Last I saw you was before our school burned down and-"

"Listen, Chelsea. I'm in trouble. And if I say I'm in trouble I mean really fucking big trouble. I need your help."

"I... yeah okay, what do you need? Where are you? What's going on?"

"I know I'm asking a lot of you, but... could you probably pick me up?"

“Should I call the police? I could-“

“NO!” I almost shouted, then cleared my throat and continued with a quiet voice. “No, please don’t. I… please just get me out of here.”

"Well, where are you?" I told her my location and that she'd better hurry. She fussed a little over me being not exactly around the corner and all, but she promised to make it there as fast as possible. Still, I knew it would take her several hours to get here, so I decided I had to go and find a place to hide until she arrived. I found a relatively save spot between two large and rusty dumpsters. A rat scurried away when I got close, but other than that, the spot was empty. I sat down in the shadows, pulling the jacket closer to myself. It was a little too small for me and a look at the label earlier had revealed it was extra large. Shit. I must have grown already.

A drop of rain hit my cheek, then another on my leg. I looked up into the sky. No stars were visible, but huge amounts of clouds, intent on pouring their much needed contents all over the dry landscape. Every once in a while, lightning twitched along the horizon, a few small rockets hissed, rising up into the air before exploding in a colorful burst of sparks.

My stomach hurt. I had no energon; all I had was the gas in the canister. I wasn't so sure if I should try and drink it, after all who knew that stuff wouldn't poison me? Still... I was hungry. The last time I had refueled had been in the cell and it hadn't been a lot. Merely a few sips. I was hit by the rain more frequently now, but I didn't bother looking for shelter, enjoying the feeling of water on my body.

I opened the canister and sniffed at its contents, it smelled like ordinary gas. Tentatively, I tried a sip- only to spit it out immediately. It tasted terrible, just terrible. Offended by the disgusting aroma still lingering in my mouth, I closed the plastic vessel again and shoved it aside. Gas wasn't an option, then. Wiping the taste off of my tongue didn’t work either- also, the taste sensors didn’t seem to be only on my tongue anyway. Well, I could still try diesel, or oil or ethanol... but I would certainly not get energon anywhere. I didn't even know of what exactly that stuff was made of, only that it tasted good and made me full.

I leaned my back against the dirty wall behind me. I couldn't wait until Chelsea showed up. It would be nice to see a familiar human face again, although my own looks would probably freak her out quite a bit. In a way, I felt bad for calling her; I didn't want to drag her into this story, I didn't want to cause her any trouble. But I wouldn't stay with her anyway. I'd ask her to take me back to our city, the city where I had grown up and which I knew inside out, where it would be relatively easy to hide and not be found by the Autobots... I could hide in the abandoned warehouse, near the highway in the old industrial district. I trusted Chelsea. I had known her for almost my entire life and she was one of my closest friends. If she had called me and asked for help, I wouldn't have hesitated to do anything in my might to do so.

There wasn't much I could do until she showed up though, and so I waited. Hours passed. I crouched behind the dumpster when a helicopter flew overhead, but the spotlight didn't catch me by a long shot and so I thought of myself as being safe for the moment. I couldn't recharge. Although the temperatures didn't drop as low as to resemble those in my cell, it still was pretty cold. But the cold was not the reason I didn't find any rest.

The scratches I had inflicted upon myself ached, I held my arm close to my chest, but the burning sensation didn't subside in the slightest. I spent my time with counting the few cars that were passing by. This was a relatively small town, so the traffic was rather sparse; throughout the whole night, I counted a total of 32 cars. Dawn was slowly nipping at the horizon and a thin coat of rime covered my body where the rain couldn't wash it away. I brushed it off carefully. Then, a familiar car pulled onto the parking lot and a girl with shoulder length, straight black hair stepped out. She looked around somewhat cluelessly, only to find there was no one there. It was still rather dark outside, she couldn't see me, not even when I stepped out of my shelter. Of course I remained in the shadows at first. She called my name.

"Here. I’m here." I said quietly. Chelsea turned into my direction, eyes squinting.

"Joelle?" I hesitated to reveal myself completely. How would she react?

"Chelsea. I'm glad you came. You can't imagine what I went through."

"What... what happened? Your voice sounds strange. Are you sick or something?"

"I..." I looked at my childhood friend. She looked a little confused and very worried. "You gotta promise you won't freak out now. You must know I'm still the same person, even if I don't look the same anymore. Okay? Please promise me."

"Okay, okay, I promise. Come. Let me see you. How bad can it be?" I vented a huge amount of cold morning air before stepping out into the light. I should have known she would react a little more hysterical than she'd let on.

"HOLY SHIT!! WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!" She jumped back behind her car's silver hood. I slowly continued towards her across the wet pavement. It had been raining cats and dogs for the last hours, now was no exception. I raised my hands in a reassuring gesture.

"Please... I... please don't be afraid. Please. I need your help, Chelsea. They'll find me if you don't help me. They mustn't find me. _Please_..."

"I don't believe you're... how am I supposed to know you're the one you're pretending to be? Prove it. Prove you're really Joelle, my friend Joelle." I sighed, lowering my arms. What was there only the two of us knew? I thought back to what we had experienced together in the past. My face lit up. I remembered a time when she had been staying over at my place and we had wanted to make some chocolate custard. It all had ended in a disaster when she'd misjudged the speed descriptions on my mom's mixer and the custard had been splattered all over the kitchen walls.

"Oh shit, moving the lever to the front means 'extra fast'? How retarded is that? Remember that one?" Her jaw dropped. Slowly, very slowly, she left the safety of her car's side and walked towards me. I remembered her to be a little taller than me, now she was noticeably shorter. She stopped in front of me, staring up into my face. The rain had long since soaked her black strands and was dripping onto her soaked gray jacket. Her hand lifted to touch my jaw tentatively. She flinched at the feeling of metal beneath her fingers. Tears were welling up in her dark brown eyes.

"Oh my god. It really _is_ you. Oh my god, what the fuck happened to you?"

"I'd... rather explain this in the car. I don't want to be seen out in the open."

"Okay. Okay uh... where are we going?"

"Home."

 

XXXXXXXXXX

 

"So let me get this straight." Chelsea said, taking another sip of her energy drink. "You've been kidnapped by a race of almost extinct alien robots because they want you to have babies and you're an alien yourself and now you've escaped and are on the run from them."

"Yeah that's pretty much it." I was sitting on the backseat of her car, mostly obscured from the views of the people in the other cars on the highway through the tinted windows. I was wearing Chelsea's sunglasses and a dark brown baseball cap. We had already driven the biggest part of the distance to our hometown, the landscape was already looking more familiar, forests and lakes starting to border the highway instead of desert.

We had spent the past hours talking, with her telling me about how everything back home had been in such a chaos, how they had all been so worried, how badly my parents were taking it and with me telling her about my imprisonment, the surgery, the escape. She had seemed to have trouble fighting back tears at one point or another, but by now she was relatively recomposed.

"I still can't believe this is real."

"You're not alone there."

"So what are you going to do? I mean, is there some way to change you back or something?" I sighed, looking out of the window.

"I fear I won't ever be able to just live a normal life again. Or to be human again. As to what I'm gonna do, I'm not so sure myself. I think I'll try and hide out in the city, but it could become more difficult when I get bigger, which I'm pretty sure I will."

"Well, maybe you could, you know, stay with me and my mom, I don't think she'd mind." I shook my head vehemently.

"No way. I don't want to endanger you. I don't know what the Autobots will do to you if they find me at your place. No. I'm better off alone."

"And" she looked at me through the rear view mirror. "what if you ask the police for help? I mean, maybe they could help you."

"I don't think the police or the government could do anything to help me. Technically, I'm an illegal immigrant. Besides, with the military aid the Autobots seem to be providing I doubt they will risk their good diplomatic relations just to protect someone who's not even a member of their species. They'd probably hand me over as soon as they see me."

"But you can't just live on the streets. What will you eat... or... do you even eat?"

"I... was given energon while I was back at their base. It's some kind of alien fuel, but I certainly wouldn't be getting it anywhere on this planet other than from the Autobots, so... I don't know what I'll 'eat', no. Certainly not donuts." She drove on in silence for a while. I wondered what she was thinking. What would I have thought if something like that would have happened to one of my friends? I should never find out. A huge black GMC pickup truck pulled up beside us. I shrank down into the backseat. This wasn’t good. The rain was still pouring down on the highway.

"Um, Chelsea?"

"Yes?" I pulled the collar of my jacket up on either side of my face to hide myself a little more.

"Please don't panic, but... I don't think that's an ordinary truck there beside us." She looked to the left, where the black topkick refused to pull further ahead or fall back, remaining in its place.

"Oh my god, you think it's one of them?"

"I'm pretty sure it is."

"Oh shit. What am I supposed to do?"

"Act normal. Don't panic. Maybe he doesn't even know I'm in here." All warning I received was Chelsea's horrified shriek before the black truck beside us rammed the side of our smaller car violently, driving it against the guardrail to our right. Chelsea lost it and pressed the pedal to the metal, but the truck easily kept up with us.

"OhmygodohmygodOHMYGOD!!!" She made a sharp right turn to catch the next exit, almost overturning the car. I looked out of the rear window, only to see the black truck drifting into a u- turn and racing after us. It was followed by a few army vehicles. When I turned back to look out of the front windows, I could only catch a small glimpse of a red car honking and speeding towards us with screeching brakes, but it was too late to do anything.

Everything went so fast. It smashed into the driver's door brutally, sending the car spinning out of control, coming to a sudden and shuddering stop when it crashed against something else. Subconsciously, I had curled up in a protective ball on the backseat, my safety belt holding me in place and preventing me from being catapulted from side to side too extremely. When my hands let go of my head, what I saw made me cry out in horror. Chelsea's lifeless face staring back at me, upside down, neck bent over the back of her seat, mouth wide open, pure terror written into the expression she had carried in the last second of her life, her blood covered head almost severed from her body, which had been crushed by the other car along with the biggest part of our car's front, only just attached by a few sinews...

I screamed. I thrashed. I tried to open the seat belt, but my hands were too clumsy in my panicked state. Finally, I managed to rip it out of its mountings and hurriedly scrambled out of the broken side window and into the pouring rain, my jacket getting caught in the shards. I wriggled out of it and ran, screaming. People in cars gasped and screamed as they saw me, but I didn't care. I didn't look back. I just wanted to get away.

The highway was crossing an old residential area with run- down houses. I ran across the road junction, jumping and climbing over wedged in cars, stumbling over the guardrail and almost landing on my face, but always running on and on. I didn't know if someone was following me, I just wanted to get away.

Chelsea. She was dead because of me. She was dead!! Oh god. I felt sick. The rain was obscuring my view, everything blurred, the noise all around me was ear- shattering. Suddenly the world tumbled around me, I was ripped off my feet, something had hit me and tangled with my limbs, a net, wrapped around me, I couldn't get up, then I saw Ironhide in his bipedal form, kneeling down with a syringe in his hand, I felt it pierce my neck, I screamed, I wanted to struggle, but I couldn't, he was holding me down. And then, everything went dark.


End file.
